


Illustrated Misdeeds

by Felix_27



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:40:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 99,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1890564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felix_27/pseuds/Felix_27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Season 5. Myka, Pete and Helena have been reunited for their first mission in some time. Tension is a little high as the artifact chase has them following a familiar traveling carnival that has desires of its own with horrible consequences.</p><p>“That’s the fuel, the vapor that spins the carousel, the raw stuffs of terror, the excruciating agony of guilt, the scream for real or imagined wounds. The carnival sucks that gas, ignites it, and chugs along its way.” - Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any characters associated with Warehouse 13 or the novel Something Wicked This Way Comes.
> 
> Every quote at the beginning of each chapter will be from the novel by Ray Bradbury.

>   
>  “Everything that happens before Death is what counts.”  
> 

Red.

Yellow.

Blue.

They all blurred together with a background track of children laughing and screaming in fun. It could either be a setting of delight or the macabre. It all depended on one’s mood.

Agent Bering raised her sunglasses and squinted her eyes. 

Dark red overtook the garish display in front of her. Round and round the color blurred, overpowering the rest. A particularly high squeal that could only come from the depths of child’s endless vocal chords pulled her out of her reverie. The sunglasses slid back down and she looked away from the Ferris wheel in front of her in the far distance. The colored lights twinkled in the mid-morning light despite the sun that was shining brightly on the over-crowded fair spectacle. Every booth and ride blinked, twinkled and swooshed. It was making her nauseous.

Stepping back from the gate of entrance, Myka’s eyes scanned the parking lot. Car doors slammed as children rushed to get to the gates. Parents scrambling after them with bottles of sunscreen and hats grasped in their hands and mild warnings of good behavior on the tips of their frazzled tongues. One kid just missed running into Myka but she side stepped the wide-eyed boy easily. An apology was not left in his passing.

It was going to be a long day. 

She pulled her jacket around her tighter. Her hands shifted up into the sleeves.

“Mykes! Mykes, guess who got us primo passes?” Pete Lattimer bounded towards her, his feet sloshing in the tall grass, his hands gripping three pink fluorescent arm bands.

Half a smile formed on her face in response. 

“Pete, all carnivals have the same passes, unless you are a child or a senior,” she paused. “Actually, did someone mistake you for an eight year old boy? Did we get a discount?”

A second set of footsteps approached.

“A common occurrence I’m sure for Agent Lattimer, but this time his height gave him away when he purchased the passes and there is the shadow of stubble on his chin,” a soft voice called from behind him. “Despite his maturity level, these things tend to give him away.”

The smile tightened on Myka’s face as Helena joined them. 

“Hey, now, not my fault I didn’t have time to shave this morning before Artie sent us out on this ping. I barely even had a chance to grab breakfast.”

“You mean a second breakfast,” Helena interjected.

“Okay, sure, I may have already had a bowl of cereal, but then Abigail brought in donuts she picked up and before I could even-“

“You had one, you grabbed one of the powdered monstrosities on our way out. It was all over your jacket.”

“Yes, thank you for that, Detective Wells, okay, so maybe, I wasn’t able to get all the donuts I wanted, it basically counts as not getting breakfast.”

“You poor unfortunate soul.”

Myka stood still during their exchange. Her fingers clenched around her arms as she folded them against her chest. She could almost feel her nails digging through her jacket. 

“As nice as this little routine is, did you happen to see anything strange at the ticketholder booth?”

“Nope. And when we asked about the missing person’s reports, the guy selling the ticket’s acted like he didn’t know what we were talking about,” Pete replied. “And I already put the passes in one of the neutralizing bags to check, but they’re fine.”

“It has been in the local news that three adults have gone missing since the carnival opened this week in town,” Helena said.

“Yes, I read the report.”

Helena nodded at her slowly. The flashy smile that had been present on her face during her exchange with Pete started to fade. A delicate finger reached up and rubbed a patch of skin between the silky scarf she was wearing and the loose blouse. 

Myka looked away.

Pete cleared his throat. “So far the police aren’t taking it seriously. One of the guys was Jacob Roads and he’s apparently known as the town drunk and for disappearing randomly. Melissa Freeze was a university student from a city over, who came two days ago with her roommates. They claim Melissa said she was going back to their place on her own but so far no one has heard from her. Story floating around is that she went to visit her parents a state over, seems fishy, Claudia is trying to contact them to see. And finally, Bill Cornwell, a eighty year old guy who has no extended family, but is supposed to be staying at a retirement home just down the road, but hasn’t been seen in three days.”

“Think his disappearance is connected? Couldn’t he have wandered off from the retirement home not entirely aware of his surroundings? That does tend to happen with elderly-”

“Shh,” Pete interrupted and leaned forward. “Don’t talk about the elderly like that in front of H.G., she’s sensitive about being a senior. She wouldn’t even let me get her the senior discount on her pass.”

Helena frowned at him but remained quiet.

“Seriously, Pete, why would he have been at the carnival on his own?”

“I don’t know but going on the trend Artie was following of this carnival’s travels based on what the fish picked up, people disappearing is a common occurrence. Can’t rule out any coincidences. See anything weird on your perimeter check?”

“Nope, just an abundance of fun,” she replied sharply. Too sharply. Pete blinked rapidly, the lashes on his face flinching with action. Helena glanced at her and then turned away. Myka could taste a bitterness in her mouth and tried to swallow it down.

Holding in a sigh that was caught somewhere below her shoulders, she cleared her throat and fought for a smile to smear itself across her stiff cheeks.

“Anything in there could be making these people disappear. I’m not particularly happy about the idea of spending forever here,” she said, trying for a lighter tone.

In a flash Pete recovered and smiled at her. He held his hand out and waited. Rolling her eyes she held her wrist out towards him. With his eyes shining he wrapped one of the bands around her wrist and handed one to Helena. The last pink marker was clasped around his wrist and he bumped his against theirs. Myka nodded at him and his antics, it was best to focus on that and not how he’d had to basically double the band over her bony wrist. 

Helena was eyeing the crowds in the distance. Briefly, she wondered how a modern carnival would compare to Helena’s past experiences but then again, there were months the time traveler had been living the family life with Nate and Adelaide, and Myka found she really couldn’t gauge what surprised the newly reinstated warehouse agent about the modern world anymore.

The skin on the back of her neck felt cold and clammy. Reaching up she rubbed her hand against the bare skin of her neck; her short curls just barely touching her fingers.

A giant arm reached for her and she found herself being pulled into Pete’s shoulder.

“Come on Mykes, I’ll let you beat me at bumper cars.”

As much as Pete’s exuberance could be more of annoyance, especially of late, Myka found his charm briefly working. He always knew what buttons to push.

“Ha, like you could beat me anyways. You’re on.”

“That’s the spirit! And hey, I’ll play one of the booth games and win H.G. a giant teddy bear and everyone will have a good time while…you know we look for missing people.”

“I can assure you, I have no need for a giant teddy bear,” Helena remarked dryly. “Nor, would I need your assistance in winning one at whatever game of skill.”

Pete put his other arm around Helena and leaned his head back. “My independent ladies, I get it, but come on, let’s get in the spirit a little, I haven’t been to a carnival since college. I’ll buy you a cotton candy H.G!”

“I’m quiet sure I’m well off without one-“

“And you, Mykes,” he interrupted. “You know I’ll save the Ferris wheel ride for you.”

“Please don’t, Pete.”

“But it’ll be all romantic and stuff and we can see if that old spark between us flares to life when we reach the top and look out all over this vast and wondrous world of –“

“- of a parking lot.”

“Get in the mood,” he teased. “Maybe we should give these things a second chance.”

Slipping out of his grasp she started to make her way into the entrance and turned around to face him again with her arms up in the biggest declaration of no.

“There is no chance, our very short and brief, and limited and minute, and basically non-existing-“

“Love affair,” Pete added with a sly smirk and a wiggle of his eyebrows.

“Sorry, what are you two implying with-“

Helena’s words were immediately cut off.

“Nope, we aren’t talking about it. It was an artifact related incident.”

“Are you sure?” Pete asked with far too much sass for the time of day.

“Yes, Claudia is the one who figured it out in between all the and I quote ‘vomiting and extreme emotional distress of having to see all that’. Although, I’m still not convinced you weren’t having a mid-life crisis,” she said with a turn and carried on.

“Mid life crisis my ass.”

“Two words, your haircut,” she called back over her shoulder.

Pete’s shoulders caved in and he glared after her. A hand reached up and swept through the locks of hair on his head. The action was more of a nervous tick as he checked that the locks were standing up right more than once. His feet started to advance with a pace that implied further arguing was to be on the horizon.

“Come on, H.G., we need to go kick Myka’s ass at bumper cars.”

Helena, for her part, was not in motion. She stood still, blinking in confusion, her mouth gaping.

“H.G.,” Pete whined and stepped back, giving her a push. “Let’s go!”

“Did you just say…” she surprisingly stuttered. “Love affair…” she next gasped. “Between you and Myka-“ Her words had lost all their usual elegance.

“Uh huh, but it only lasted like a few weeks, we didn’t really have time to explore it at the time with the Warehouse crisis happening and not realizing we’d been whammied, so you know only a few hot and heavy make out sessions -“

“I’m suddenly aware of what the vomit and emotional distress is in regards to and as a writer I have never been so sure of an adequate use of words.”

“Everybody is a critic,” Pete murmured.

The two of them walked through the entrance gates joining Myka. 

Myka glanced up as they crossed over, a large flashing sign spelling out “Mr. Electro’s Carnival” hung in an arch above them. Two pinwheels dazzled on either side of the sign, their colors flashing and twirling in a wind that wasn’t felt.


	2. Chapter 2

>   
>  “…holding a book but reading the empty spaces.”  
> 

“There appears to be a lot of people here on a school day,” Helena observed.

“It’s a Friday, it’s barely a school day at most. I remember my dad took me out of school to go to the carnival whenever it came to our town,” Pete replied.

“This explains-“

“A lot. I get it. Lattimer isn’t as intellectual as Wells and Bering because he knows how to have fun. La de dah. ”

He shook his hands in the air dramatically.

“It’s an attraction, people make exceptions-“

“No, she’s right, Pete,” Myka interrupted. Standing with her hip cocked against a table covered in souvenir mood rings, she eyed the abundant cluster of people trying to move from stall to stall of merchandise. 

The three of them stood off to the side of the aisle. 

“The biggest crowd days would be the weekend and the Police Chief did mention that since the carnival arrived on Monday more and more people seemed to be attending. Shops closing for the day out of nowhere-“

“You mean Mr. Police Chief Happy Pills. Dude seemed way to mellow with the disappearances.”

“Perhaps, due to the nature of this being a small town the Police Chief is just used to looking on the bright side,” Helena said.

It was an exaggerated move as Pete leaned over towards Myka.

“Umm, when did H.G. become an optimist?”

Myka stood up straighter as she crossed her arms and cleared her throat.

“I am simply stating the nature of a small town and-“

“Or somehow this fair has cast a spell all over the townspeople,” Myka spoke over Helena.

“I think that’s just plain old advertisement and consumerism, Mykes.”

“Of course, there is that,” she began, her eyes roving the grounds as far as she could see. A deeper frown craved its way across her face. “There’s something familiar about this carnival in particular, I can’t put my finger on it.”

“What do you mean?” Helena asked.

The skin on the inside of Myka’s right cheek was caught between her teeth. Breathing out through her nose she nodded to a selection of far off tents.

“This is a pretty old fashioned carnival. What carnival still has a freak show or psychic readings?”

“So someone has a stiffy for old nostalgia. Sometimes older is better,” Pete said and then coughed as he leaned in to whisper at Helena who immediately pulled her head back. “That wasn’t a come on to you, H.G.”

Two little dots of the hardest coal leveled their gaze at Pete; any speck of light in them vanished instantly. For his part, Pete grimaced and coughed again with a step back.

“Well, at least we know you didn’t lose your certain knack for the murderous gaze routine when you were in suburbia,” he said. 

Even without looking beside him he knew somehow Helena’s eyes had only gotten darker. Myka remained noticeably quiet.

“Shall we form a game plan then? I don’t think we should spilt up just yet with how busy the fair is, we should focus on one of the supposed victim’s last steps, like Melanie F-“

“Melissa,” Myka interjected.

“Yes, sorry, Melissa. Didn’t her friends say they started their night at the beer tent, then some games and then the psychic readings tent? We’re closest to the psychic so lets go get our mind’s blown with our futures.”

“You don’t believe in that stuff do you?” Helena asked in disbelief.

“Lady, I work in a warehouse full of the weirdest stuff and I’m talking to you. Who knows anymore?”

“At the very least the psychic reader may recall Melissa and her friends,” Myka added.

“Well, that too,” Pete supplied with a nod. “Hey, Mykes, do you want to leave your jacket in the car before we venture in further, it looks like it’s warming up and-“

“It’s fine, Pete.”

“Are you cold or-?”

“I said, it’s fine, Pete,” she said, trying to open the space between her teeth.

“Okay, it’s just I don’t want you to be coming down with something, you know-“

A quick look and Myka found an opening in the current of people streaming through the aisle and stepped forward making her way towards the attraction tents.

Pete frowned but bit his tongue. A brief second his child like exuberance was burnt out, a gust of wind blowing the internal flame down as it tried to flicker back to life.

“So, it’s just not me she’s not exactly thrilled with,” Helena said quietly, her voice flat.

A bark of laughter erupted from his lips. Helena flinched.

“Is it obvious?”

Helena remained quiet.

“Well we all have things on our minds at the moment.”

“Like what in particular?” she asked.

“Things,” he repeated, the expression in his eyes abruptly closed off. 

“Like you and Myka believing you were in love with each other?”

“Oh, H.G., don’t sound so mad, Myka was mad enough for all of us. Even Mrs. Fredric had been whammied, she’d been having talks with Myka about how it was time for her to start thinking about having babies and making a family and the next thing you know me and her are-“

“What the hell kind of artifact was this?!”

“I need you to take the seething down a notch there,” he said. He watched as Helena clenched and unclenched her hands. “And you don’t want to know, it’s in the Dark Vault now.”

“I realize that I have only been back at the Warehouse as an agent for two weeks since, well, since my absence, but it feels like I am missing a lot of the pieces to how things-“

“Oh, come on, even you aren’t that naïve, did you really think things would stay the same while you were off playing Leave it to Beaver or Sex in the City-“

“I don’t understand any of those references.”

“No, but I’m sure you have an idea of what they mean.”

He sighed, a deep sound that caused his shoulders to sink a level. 

“Things happen and we move on. And the things that are happening right now,” he paused for a beat, and a warmth found it’s way back, as he smirked at her. “Well, they could be fun, so let’s go and bask in a day off school.”

“The ability you have to switch your moods is cause for concern. We’re looking for missing people remember.”

“Yah, yah, but take in the sights. For now, try and enjoy and when we get home we can all sort out our drama and we better sort it out, because listen H.G., you are not my BFF and so no, I will not be buying you a cheap ass beaded friendship bracelet from one of these stalls. Because Myka is my BFF, so she gets the bracelet and you and Myka are supposed to be…” he paused. His words left him as he tried to find the right description. “I don’t know, what it is, Wells and Bering-“

“It’s actually supposed to be Bering and Wells, I believe.” Her lips crinkled into a soft smile even though her eyes glistened with a sheen of sadness.

“Hey, hey, hey! Look at that, you being all giving and stuff. There is hope,” he said as he hugged her briefly and pulled back when she didn’t reciprocate. His arms dropped to his sides and he coughed. “But seriously, you and me getting along more than you and Myka is weirding me out. We need to fix that.”

Helena nodded and took a step forward. “Do not concern yourself too much, Agent Lattimer. In no world would I consider you my BFF. Ever.”

The curtain of her black shiny hair shimmered in the sunlight as she made her way further into the grounds. It served as a beacon as Pete tried to maneuver his way, with less grace than both Myka and Helena had, into the path of people.

“It weirds me out when you use modern lingo like that! You’ve adapted too much!” He yelled. “Everyone needs to just stop weirding me out,” he whispered to himself. 

“Oh, corn dogs!” he squealed with delight as he was bumped into a food cart by a rush of people.

Corn dogs may have been weird to most people, especially their ingredients, but never to Pete. For a moment he was at peace. The art of Zen was deep-fried.


	3. Chapter 3

>   
>  “Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least. You can't act if you don't know. Acting without knowing takes you right off the cliff.”  
> 

The clang of a bell rang loudly, followed by a buzzer and then yells of excitement. Helena watched with an amused expression as a young man put the comically large hammer down and puffed his chest out to his surrounding friends as the buzzer went off with the announcement of a winner. The test of strength had been evidently conquered. One other boy attempted to go next, and pride seemed to be of no concern to him as he mimed being unable to pick the hammer up for his turn at attempting to hit the bell.

She supposed she could she the appeal of such antics, in the sense that genuine fun seemed to be occurring. The familiar circus music of the Merry-Go-Round played in the distance. A carousel would be a welcomed sight in comparison to the whip fast cages she saw high up in the air, spinning and whipping back and forth as though they would launch off of the ride itself and far off into the stratosphere. For someone who had built their own rocket ship and thought of shooting off up into space, she realized it was a tad hypocritical in a way to critique the function of the modern rides in front of her. In reality, they were most likely safer. Not that she would ever admit that to anyone. But still the term carnival or traveling fair struck her as odd; she recalled certain expos in her day but they were of architectural and scientific exploration. This modern carnival’s Ferris Wheel that she could see in the distance was a joke compared to the one she’d rode at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The first ever Ferris Wheel had been a truly marvelous thing. This carnival was child’s play in comparison. 

Despite the oddity of the excitement before her over sugary fried foods, over priced rigged games of chance and rides that could possible cause one to loose their stomach, everyone was partaking in the fun. She could definitely see how it held appeal to someone like Pete, but not everyone. Myka stood in line for the tent of the psychic readings. Her arms crossed, her eyes hidden by sunglasses, and a neutral expression on her face. Of course one could argue Myka was focusing on the job but Helena knew something was wrong.

It was a funny thing really, being back where she was and feeling even more unease and yet, comfortable. It was hard to articulate. She noticed being back at the Warehouse no one had yet to ask her to really extrapolate on any of her thoughts except for Abigail. She was once more a cog in the machine that was the Warehouse but she was being backlogged. Helena wasn’t privy to the updated manual on how things worked now, she was given her duties, she was no longer questioned and yet the language all the other agents appeared to speak between the spaces of their actions was a new code she had yet to break. Time had passed and she was playing catch up. She knew it was warranted though. Disappearing as she had, delaying her return had put a sour taste in all the Warehouse agent’s mouths. Claudia had been excited about her return, but she felt a distance all the same, one could chalk that up to the young woman’s growth and new responsibilities but Helena knew. Agent Steve Jinks was someone she’d never known really and he was the one most adaptable to her presence. Pete, oddly, was the most welcoming of all. Artie was surprisingly second, he genuinely seemed happy she was where he said she belonged. 

On one hand it felt like she was in an alternate universe, Pete and Artie the most welcoming and the one person who had always fought for her, Myka Bering, was the farthest away. It appeared to be a cruel joke. 

Helena could be willfully naïve when she was playing a part. Emily Lake was just such a part, but she knew she had hurt Myka with her words at the time with their incident in Boone. Despite this, Myka had stayed in contact with her. They had talked from time to time. It was only a month after the jawbone incident that she left Nate and Adelaide. Myka’s words had struck her in two; she had felt she could no longer play the part she was playing. So she had found a new role for Emily Lake to play, a new way to hurt Myka, a new way to hold off on being drawn to the Warehouse. 

Life in a new city, life dating, a life pretending that what she wanted most of all wasn’t in South Dakota. She could still pretend like the salve she needed was normal. That she was safest away from temptation from those she cared about most of all. Because H.G. Wells was never naïve, but Emily Lake was. And maybe Emily Lake believed that things could stay the same while she was pretending. 

It was silly really. Emily Lake was so silly.

H.G. Wells wasn’t silly. H.G. Wells was a fool, a regretful fool. A fool though, can learn not to partake in the foolishness that has defined their title. With a step toward Myka, Helena found her regrets pushing her forward.

“Did you lose Pete already?” Myka asked without turning to look at her as she stepped in line. Her tone was light and civil, but the way her jaw was clenched, Helena could tell it was an effort.

Much of the interaction she’d had with Myka since her return was light and civil. She hated the word. Civil. Civil was what the phone conversations were that they’d had the first few months after Boone. Talking but not really talking. Eventually, the phone calls had tapered off, not due to her lack of trying though. She’d politely left Myka messages that had gone unanswered and when she’d contacted Claudia to inquire, she was given common answers that held no meaning. 

Myka has been on a lot of artifact retrievals, remote areas with not a lot of service.

Myka is visiting family.

Myka is on vacation.

Our collective cell service in the area has been on the fritz, you know Univille.

All civil lies, she could tell. 

She hated the act of it. She hated the performance Myka was giving her, but like Pete had suggested, perhaps the carnival wasn’t the best place to hash out their problems. 

“He’s coming along. I don’t think Artie was thinking clearly when he assigned Pete on this one. He’s easily distracted,” she replied. 

Myka snorted lightly at that. 

The line moved ahead, a young teenaged couple were in front of them, waiting next, the young boy kissing the girl quickly and whispering with excitement. Looking ahead she read the now unblocked sign and frowned.

“Why is she called ‘The Dust Witch’?”

“Pardon?”

“The name of the psychic, the sign says the Dust Witch, I wonder what that means…” she trailed off as she noticed Myka took her sunglasses off and read the sign. Her brown curls swished to the right as she tilted her head in thought. A small smile appeared on her face. It was the first crack of Myka’s lips that was truly unrestrained that Helena had seen in a while.

“Something funny?”

“Not particularly, but I think someone thinks they are being,” Myka replied.

Opening her mouth to question the cryptic response, she was interrupted as Pete came barreling into them.

“Sorry, I got stuck behind, I saw this one sketchy booth that was selling named license plates that looked a little too antiquey for my liking, one of them had Bertha as an option, so I had to stop and check if anything sparked or-“

“Pete,” Myka interrupted.

“Yeah?”

“You know you have mustard on your face right?”

“What?” he exclaimed as he reached up and tried to wipe the mustard off of his chin.

“So how many corn dogs did you stop for?”

“What? I told you, I was investigating and…” he paused as Myka arched an eyebrow. “Okay, fine, it was the corn dogs and I had three.”

“Please tell me a corn dog is one of your ridiculous American food traditions and not a literal-“ Helena said.

“Yes, H.G., calm down, it is a food travesty no doubt in your mind, but no actual dogs were harmed.”

She wrinkled her nose. “It still sounds unfortunate.”

“It’s really unfortunate when you’ve been in the car with him on a ride home and he’s had five,” Myka added.

“You are a cruel man,” Helena stated.

The young couple in front of them went into the tent as a group of laughing teenagers exited. 

Raising his head up like a dog catching the scent of hunted prey, Pete turned to the right and sniffed. Helena expected him to bark any minute.

“Do you think you could act like a competent adult for a few seconds?” she asked.

“Haha, no, do you guys smell that?”

“Smell what?” Myka asked.

Pete narrowed his eyes. “Fudge.” He sniffed again. “I smell fudge.”

Both her and Myka turned in the direction he was looking and sniffed. It was comical and ridiculous, but the smell of fudge could be deadly. The three of them were on alert.

“I do actually,” Myka began seriously, only to be interrupted as Pete jumped on the spot. 

“Oh my god, guys, it’s an actual fudge trolley,” he said while starting to laugh. His finger pointed a few feet ahead of them where an older woman was pushing a trolley with sweets. The word ‘fudge’ writing in cursive writing on the front. 

“That is hilarious,” he continued. “Wait, I gotta get some. Artie will love it! Artie, we smelled fudge, because there was fudge. Classic.”

“I doubt he will,” Helena said but was ignored.

“Pete!” Myka yelled, but he was already off in the direction of the cart. 

“Do you ever wonder if Pete working at the Warehouse is more of a favor to Jane as a way to babysit him?”

Myka pursed her lips in thought. “Well, if I didn’t before, I do now.”

The two lovebirds exited, the young girl blushing as they went.

“Shall we meet this Dust Witch then? Something tells me it’s going to be theatrical.”

“This won’t be your first psychic reading?”

“No, it won’t be my first rodeo, as you say, did I say that right?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you should,” Myka replied as she pulled back the dark flap of fabric that served as door to the tent. 

“Right. Well I went to a few séances back when they were all the rage. Doyle used to-“

“Doyle? Arthur Conan Doyle?”

Helena nodded.

“Right, of course. Of course, that Doyle.”

“Yes, but unfortunately, sometimes the extent a person is willing to go to, to believe in something that they hope will hold all their answers for them can lead to…“ she trailed off sadly. 

“Less theatrics and more hysterics,” Myka replied.

“Something like that. Who is to say what there is and isn’t, but the ones I’d been to always appeared to be a show of some kind or a way to swindle people out of their money.”

“Well, let’s go and see, we’ll use your money just in case we get swindled,” Myka said with a tremor of a smirk as she disappeared into the shadowed entrance.

“Oh really,” she called out. Possibly, the game of words they used to speak weren’t necessarily lost to the superficiality of civil. 

 

The tent of the Dust Witch was dark and damp. Sunlight poured in from a small hole at the very top and traveled down towards a circular stone table in the middle. The ray of light was unfortunately swallowed by most of the shadows that converged on the make shift room from every corner. Instead of stale air, the place held a smell of mosses and swamp water. 

A light flickered on the middle of the table, a match had been struck, and the flame flickered brightly.

“Who dares hear their fortune next?” a husky voice drawled.

Myka and Helena shared a look as the hand holding the match lit a lantern on the table. The new light revealing the hands of a middle aged woman who held a deck of tarot cards in her hand that she then placed on the table. Helena was unable to say if the Dust Witch lived up to her name, as a shimmering gold veil hid her face.

“Come now, don’t be afraid,” she spoke again. A cackle broke from behind the veil.

“So theatrics it is,” Helena whispered to Myka.

“Mhmmm,” Myka responded.

“Actually, we had a few questions for you about-“

The hidden woman laughed at Helena’s words, the laugh like a wet popping bubble as it spilled out of her mouth.

“Most do when they come to see me.”

“Yes, well, we’re Secret Service Agents investigating, so our questions may be more presently based in reality,” Myka spoke as she stepped towards the table.

Helena watched as the Witch’s back stood up straighter, her head swinging towards Myka with a curious tilt. She was silent for a bit as she appeared to scrutinize the air around Myka.

“I’m sure many Presidents could use the help of divination in their terms, how nice to see-“

“We will spare you the details but we’re here about the missing people reports. Do you remember a young woman called Melissa Freeze, from two nights ago? She was with three other young woman who said they’d spent part of the night here in your tent.”

“I get many young women in here looking for some direction, can you be more specific?”

Myka pulled her phone out and pulled up a picture of Melissa from her online profile and handed it to the Witch.

The golden veil swished back and forth as the Witch began to laugh again. 

“Something funny?” Helena asked.

“Depends on your sense of humor,” the witch replied as she lifted her veil up. 

Her action revealed the face of a woman of indeterminate age, her skin was only marred by a few wrinkles, but blonde hair stuck out here and there like straw, it’s texture dry and brittle. Lips chapped with a hint of blue were curled in an ugly smirk. Crystal blue eyes blinked and looked around the room but never focusing.

“You’re blind,” Helena said. “Sorry.”

“Oh my dear, you have nothing to be sorry about. Not your fault.”

There was something off about the woman’s whole look, but Helena couldn’t put her finger on what it was exactly. The woman appeared to be blind and yet, Helena noticed her gazed kept flickering to the air around Myka. Even as Helena spoke to her, her focus was on Myka. It was unnerving. 

“The name then, it doesn’t sound familiar?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” she answered. “But we did have a lot of university students two nights ago, lots of young woman looking to let loose. I believe a few who came through here voiced interest in seeing the Freak Show. They do photos of patrons with some of our Freaks, maybe you will find evidence of this Melissa there.”

“Thank you,” Helena replied.

She and Myka turned to leave.

“Wait!”

They both turned around to face the Witch’s outburst.

“Please, for your service, let me do a free reading. On the house.”

Myka laughed lightly and gave Helena an amused look and said, “Uh, I’m good.”

“Yes, thank you for your offer but we do have work we need to be doing.”

They turned to leave again but the woman reached up quickly, her hand snapping out with deceptive speed as she reached for Helena and grabbed her arm. Gnarled fingers latched onto her with a strong grip and pulled her palm out.

“No, wait! There’s something here.”

“Hey,” Myka called out as she reached over and pried the woman’s hand off of Helena’s arm and hand. 

The Witch cried out at Myka’s touch and fell back in her chair as though she had been burned.

“You can’t just go grabbing people like that,” Myka began but the Witch’s frantic mutterings started and overtook her words. “Take the performance down a notch.”

“No, no, no, not possible,” she hissed, her face twisting in an ugly manner.

“I think this is our cue to go,” Myka spoke as she looked at Helena.

“Yes. Let’s do that.”

A gust of wind that came from nowhere blew across the table causing the tarot cards to spill across it. All of them face down except for one.

The skeleton with a sickle riding a horse was hard to ignore.

There was an odd tension in the air, a static that made all three of them stand still.

“Death,” the Witch whispered.

Myka rolled her eyes and Helena found herself wishing to follow suit but the air grew thick with suffocating warmth, it slicked down the nape of her neck and kept her still.

“That is your card, Agent Bering,” the Witch hissed.

Helena opened her eyes wide as she and Myka shared a look. They hadn’t introduced themselves.

“How predictable,” Myka murmured and exhaled an exasperated sigh. 

“What is Death to you?” the Witch spoke, a huskiness weighing down her voice as she leaned over the table. “Mykkkkaaaa, what is Death to you? Mykkkaaa?” she continued to hiss like a twitching snake.

“Stop it,” Helena snapped. Her stomach began to turn. 

Myka had gone still beside her, her focus never moving from the woman whose body was jerking in sharp angles over the table. There was a cold look in Myka’s eyes; the sparkling green with specks of gold Helena was used to was dimming. It was unsettling.

“Death is in your veins,” the Witch spat.

“Not nearly enough,” Myka snapped coolly. 

There was a challenge in Myka’s eyes that Helena did not like. She didn’t like any of this and yet she found she was frozen to the spot, her lips sealed shut by some unknown force. No, that wasn’t entirely true. She knew what it was. The force of fear was hovering in the air.

“Are you done?” Myka asked, her voice sounded bored and flat.

Again the Witch’s hand snapped out with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible, her fingers wrapping around Myka’s hand as she pulled the other woman forward. 

“Myka!” Helena called out, as she tried to catch the other woman but Myka stood her ground. The Witch still held onto her hand though, she stretched Myka’s palm out as her fingers trailed along the soft skin.

“No, let her, let her continue her game,” Myka spoke, her voice cool.

Abruptly, the Witch let go and threw Myka’s hand back. 

“Get out!” she hissed.

Myka started to laugh. Helena turned her gaze away from her fellow agent. She couldn’t stand to see the loathsome amused smirk on Myka’s face as the hollow laugh reverberated through the air. There was something awful in the look and sound.

“Let us know if you remember anything about Melissa,” Myka added as she turned and left the tent.

Helena didn’t face the Witch until she heard the flap of the entrance move.

“You can’t do that to people,” Helena began.

“Your friend mocks me,” the Witch replied.

“I mock you, you are horrible, these stupid-“

“You do nothing of the sort,” the Witch spoke. “She mocks me. She has no lifeline. She mocks Death. She knows.”

The tongue in her mouth curled, ready to deliver a sharp retort, but something continued to weigh Helena down. She turned to leave.

“Be careful who you play games with Dust Witch,” she said with a hint of a threat.

“If I were you, I’d be careful to know what game I was playing.”

Helena ripped the flap of the tent wide open with jerky fingers. She gulped at the fresh air with a frantic need. Panic boiled in her blood and she had no idea why. She couldn’t explain any of it.

“Hey,” Myka’s voice called out from somewhere above her. That’s when she realized she was bent over at the waist, her hands on her knees as she breathed deeply. “Are you alright?”

Myka’s hand settled on her back gently. At the action Helena had to stifle a laugh at the idea that the first contact she’d had with Myka since she’d returned was because she was having a panic attack.

“She didn’t get to you did she? She’s a fraud, she’s not even blind.”

“What?”

“She’s just doing the spooky act, playing the part, her eyes, the light, she reacted.”

“Are you saying she is willfully blind?”

“Maybe. Are you sure you are alright?”

“I’m fine,” she gasped. “Just the air in there was horrible.”

“I’ll go get you some water,” Myka replied and then her touch was gone and Helena stood up straight to watch her retreating footsteps. 

Even with the sun shining on her, Helena felt a cold worry settle inside her. A frightful concern that moved through her veins. As she watched Myka leave, she couldn’t get the image of her icy gaze and bitter words out of her head. She had disliked everything about the experience.

What the hell was going on she wondered not for the first time.

 

The familiar droning murmur of the Farnsworth pulled Helena out of her reverie. An equally droning sound followed as Pete came up beside her.

“Hey, can you get the Farnsworth out of my back pocket?” he asked.

“And why are you unable to do that action yourself?” She turned to look at him in disbelief and words failed her.

“This would be why,” he said as he raised his sticky hands covered in what she hoped was fudge up in her face.

“Let me guess, you ate all the fudge you were purchasing for Artie.”

“Something like that.”

The Farnsworth continued to add it’s annoying soundtrack to the likewise annoyance in front of her. Rolling her eyes, she sighed and reached into his pocket for the object.

“Thanks! I’m going to go find a bathroom and wash my hands.”

“Do not stop for any more food carts, you are going to make yourself sick,” she called after him.

“Yes, Mom!”

Before the Farnsworth could continue on with it’s melody, Helena answered it and Claudia’s face burst to life on the screen. 

“Claudia.”

“H.G., what took you so long to answer?”

“There was a fudge incident.”

Even over the black and white display, it was obvious Claudia had gone several degrees paler. 

“Oh, no, how many are dead?” Her voice a strangled whisper.

“Oh!” Helena gasped. “Not that kind, my dear. But there could be one death on the horizon, I imagine the cause will be advanced onset diabetes.”

Claudia relaxed and smiled. “Ah, let me guess, the Petemister is running the gauntlet of all the food festivities at the carnival.”

“Yes and it is horrifying.”

“Well at least one of you is having a bit of fun. Could you be any more frowny face right now, H.G.?”

“I beg your pardon. Going on missions is not a time for one to indulge as though it is a vacation.”

“Oh, man, your first field mission in forever and you are suddenly by the book Agent Lady. This is bizarre. Very bizarre.”

Helena remained silent as she eyed the young woman through the screen.

“Don’t give me the evil eye from a distance, we all know you’re a big softy now, a big self-sacrificing softy. Just relax a little. Our jobs don’t give us a lot of opportunity to have fun, and against my better judgment in saying this, sometimes Pete is the example to follow in not being so serious about everything.”

“I am well aware Claudia, but if I may say so, Agent Lattimer is more hyped up than usual.”

“It’s been a tough year, who knows if this is even an artifact case, let Pete and Myka have some fun.”

“Myka is not having fun. Myka is not having anything.”

“Ohhhhhh,” Claudia drawled and then leaned into the screen with a concerned look. “You guys still being weird with the barely there communication.”

“Yes,” Helena muttered.

“Don’t pout, H.G.”

“I’m not pouting.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Fine, maybe I am, but-“

“But what? So you aren’t finding excuses to test the limits of personal space and writing sonnets with your eyes across every room, doesn’t mean you guys can’t have a good old fashion conversation the way most regular people do.”

“Myka is not exactly forthcoming about anything right now and I know that I do not deserve-“

“I’m going to stop you right there.”

Helena gaped at the interruption.

“Did you abandon us? Yes. Did you more importantly abandon the one person who supposedly knows you better than anyone to shack up with random normals? Yes. Did you drag out your return longer than we’d all expected? Yes. Did you-?”

“Is there a further point to be made that is not already known?”

“Maybe. Sometimes I just like making you squirm. I mean you did take your time because you were shacking up with a gazelle.”

“Her name was Giselle, Claudia, and I went on three dates,” she huffed.

“We all know what happens on the third date.” Claudia raised her eyebrows up and down.

“I have no idea what that phrase is meant to intone.”

“They didn’t have the three date rule back in your day.”

“No, usually ones parents were already planning the wedding by the third date.”

“The horror,” Claudia fake gasped.

“I was never one to technically date,” she added.

“Yes, well, did you drag out your return longer because you were dating an antelope? Yes-“

“Claudia!” she snapped. “Is there a point to this?”

“Look, due to my growing connection with the Warehouse and knowing the Warehouse is happy you are back has influenced me more than I’d like, because I probably would be a lot madder at you right now, but I’m surprisingly not, so I take what I can get. So safe teasing from a distance is what it is.”

“Thank you? Maybe? I think?” Helena replied.

“The point is, yes, you have a lot of work to do. You made the right step in coming back. You’re having sessions with Abigail. All good things but there’s still work to be done.”

“How can I do any work, when there is a huge wall in the way?”

“H.G.! You get that grappler of yours and you climb over that wall.”

“I am finding your sass cumbersome. That action means nothing when I’m not entirely sure what is going on.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, there seems to be a lot of other tension, even between her and Pete-“

“I know this is hard, but listen, did you ever stop and think, that maybe it isn’t all about you? Maybe, instead of a drawn out declaration of your faults, a simple, ‘How you been?’ would suffice?’”

Helena was silenced.

“I mean, probably Myka’s issues are at least sixty percent you and whatever you guys need to do but-“

“A lot has changed in my absence,” Helena added.

“More than you know,” Claudia replied seriously.

“I want to know.”

“That’s good. That’s real good.”

There was a pause in the conversation.

“You aren’t going to tell me what I need to know are you?”

“Not my place.”

Helena sighed. “Why did you call then?”

“Wanted to update you guys on what I found out on Melissa and the carnival.”

“And?”

“Well, I tracked down Melissa’s parents and they hadn’t heard from her and when I told them that her friends had reported her missing they were oblivious to my concern, they claimed she was at school. It was hard to keep the convo up, it was like they kept blanking on what we were talking about. And when I re-questioned her friends, they kept spacing on the topic of Melissa too, suddenly they were telling a story that she’d met her boyfriend and was on a road trip or that she’d gotten a new job. They couldn’t settle on a story, it was like they couldn’t help but keep suggesting things every time you asked after you had to remind them why you were asking.”

“That sounds unusual.”

“Very. And going back over Artie’s data on the carnival’s travels, there appear to be some cover-ups in further disappearances. As far as I can tell, it goes back to three months ago.”

“No one ever claimed to have found any of the missing persons?”

“No, but there was a case of identity fraud, a young couple were caught impersonating the social security numbers of an elderly couple that had gone missing from the carnival a state over.”

Helena glanced around with an uneasy feeling.

“I’m looking into the history of disappearing artifacts and anything to do with carnivals. How does the carnival seem on your end? Anything suspicious? It could just be good old fashioned sucky human nature going on.”

Helena laughed and immediately felt silly, but she glanced at the screen with concern.

“Nothing outright fishy, but this place...” she trailed off.

“What?”

She paused trying to form the words that could express the unease in the pit of her stomach. An unease that had come on all at once like a tidal wave, too late for a warning.

“There is something…unnatural about it.”

“That’s just the food Pete is ingesting.”

“I am serious.”

“I know,” Claudia replied with a serious look. “So be careful. Take care of each other. I’ll check in later.”

“Goodbye,” she said as she closed the communicating device.

Pete and Myka had crossed paths and were walking towards her way. Hurrying, she stepped quickly to meet them, wishing to get away from the dwelling of the Dust-Witch and her cruel words as fast as possible.


	4. Chapter 4

>   
>  “There are smiles and smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light.”  
> 

“And what do our fortunes hold, ladies?”

“Nothing new,” Myka replied dully. 

The Dust-Witch’s performance had amused her more than anything, but now she found her mood turning darker. It had been a waste of time. Taping her phone’s screen she brought up Melissa’s picture again. Your average blonde twenty something university student. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, a haystack that multiplied with each hour. 

The sun was at its peak. The allure of the carnival on a late afternoon Friday was bringing in more people. It would be evening soon and no doubt the carnival would be crowded with a more boisterous sort of customer. Myka already felt a chill in the air. Zipping her jacket up she glanced at H.G. out of the corner of her eye. The other woman had been mostly silent since their stop at the Dust Witch.

Helena sipped at the water bottle she had given her. The strength of her grip on the plastic container was tight as the bottle crinkled under the pressure. Other than the pop of the plastic every time she took a drink, the air around Helena was remarkably subdued. 

Myka was unsure what to say. Which in itself wasn’t an uncommon phenomenon of late. It wasn’t always that she didn’t have the words to spill, it was a precaution, she found when she let them start to slip out she had little control of where they would go. She had the foresight that in most causes, if she let it happen, it wouldn’t be a pretty scene, no matter the intention. An invisible vice squeezed around her neck and she swallowed dryly.

“Well then, based on what Claudia told H.G., this carnival has a pattern of disappearances. Whether artifact or not, it is suspicious.” Pete clapped his hands together. “Maybe we should try and find out who runs this place.”

“Yes,” Helena spoke, the one word sounded fragile in the air between them. When she spoke again, her voice started to grow steadier. “But I think it may be best to keep a low profile.”

“Right. Let’s head to the freaks and ask about Mellie and-“

“Melissa,” Myka corrected.

“Melissa, Melissa, Bo-bissa,” Pete sing songed. “Got it. And low profile it is.”

“Hey, you!” a sharp voice rang out. “Hey!” 

All three of their heads snapped to attention as the person the voice belonged to practically leapt out of the moving crowd in front of them.

“You, Broad Shoulders!” the voice barked.

Myka gazed down at the short man who was focusing on Pete. The man came to just above Pete’s waist. He was dressed in an old-fashioned clown outfit, minus the make-up and hair. The fabric with dots of color had a peculiarly vintage look. Two beady eyes and a bald patch right down the middle of his head completed the odd look.

“Come on,” he snapped as he reached to grab Pete’s hand. His voice was a scratchy husk, like when he wasn’t accosting people his mouth was busy regularly sucking on a cheap cigar. 

“Whoa, whoa,” Pete said. “No touchy. And also I have a name you know. I am not defined by the beauty of my shoulders.”

“I know, it’s Pete,” the man spoke. In his hand he held a small piece of white paper. He lifted it up as his eyes roved over it. “Pete Lattimer.” He flipped the piece of paper over to show it had Pete’s name on it in familiar handwriting.

“Oh, hey,” Pete exclaimed with recognition clear in his eyes. “Did I win?”

“Yes,” the man shortly replied. “So let’s go.” He reached for Pete’s hand and Pete allowed himself to be drawn forward.

“Pete, what is happening?” Myka spoke tensely.

“Uh,” he turned around even as he continued to be dragged along and faced her. “When I was buying the fudge-“

“Eating the fudge,” Myka added.

“Yes, all of the above. Well, when I was doing that I noticed the lady selling it had a raffle bin and I entered.”

“You cannot be serious?” Myka exclaimed. “Are you an idiot?” Helena shrieked at the same time.

“Ummm…all of the above,” Pete answered and then winced at their continuing angry reactions.

Myka and Helena were forced to follow after him and the unknown man through the crowd and deeper into the carnival grounds.

“A raffle for what?” Myka questioned harshly.

“I don’t recall exactly, something about being King or Queen of the carnival for a day.”

“Why would you even do that?” Myka spat.

“I got caught up in the moment. It sounded like fun.”

“What does it even mean?”

“It means that if Pete is elected King of the carnival today, that no matter what else it entails, his rates for an assassination attempt go up immensely. A King’s reign is never guaranteed to be long, sometimes it just makes you a target, especially when the people are unhappy,” Helena spoke, a dark gleam in her eye.

“No, H.G., you cannot kill me if I win, you’re a good guy now, you’ve been fully rehabilitated.”

“That’s not true, I’m still a work in progress.”

“Myka?” Pete squeaked as he turned and looked at her. 

“What is good for the people, Pete. And right now, we’re the people and this is no good.”

“God, why did you two suddenly have to get in synch over this?” he exclaimed. “You are both into some dark perverted stuff you know.”

“You aren’t helping yourself, Pete.”

“For crying out loud, Pete, you are more than half that man’s size, get him to stop pulling you around so we can stop this,” Helena yelled.

“Right,” Pete said with a nod. He turned around to face his kidnapper but at the same time, the shorter man let go and pushed Pete forward. The momentum propelled Pete towards to ground in front of him.

Myka winced as Pete fell flat on his face.

“It seems our last challenger has made his appearance,” a silky voice boomed. 

Laughter erupted around them.

That’s when Myka finally took in their surroundings. Following Pete they’d had their eyes only on him and that had been a mistake. Now, Pete lay in the grass with a large crowd forming a circle around him. 

Pete looked up around him. The grass stain on the skin of his forehead was more than just a small blemish. “What?” he mumbled.

“Come, come!” the smooth voice from before called out.

A few people in front of them dispersed and Myka could then see whom the voice belonged to. From the distance she couldn’t describe his features beyond a smartly trimmed black beard that stood out on a white face. The man in question was dressed in a dark suit and wore a top hat. He was standing on a wooden crate in the middle of the circle like a tall, thin black exclamation mark. 

“Mr. Lattimer,” the man called out, his voice took on a gleeful tone. “Please due me the honor of standing up in my presence. I am after all the owner of this fine carnival and if I am to be so kind to offer up a lucky customer a chance of lording over my pride and joy for a day, I wish they would do me a service of manners at the very least.”

A titter of laughter rolled through the crowd. Pete stumbled to his feet with a confused look still on his face.

Helena moved up beside her.

“As it would appear, on the one hand we can now narrow down whom we need to speak to in regards to how this establishment operates,” Helena spoke, her voice soft and quiet. She spoke as if she was afraid her voice would carry. “Or more importantly, who to secretly observe from afar first. But now-“

“So much for keeping a low profile,” Myka finished.

“How humane would it be to leave Pete in the car for the rest of the day with the windows rolled down?”

“I like everything about that plan, except for the windows rolled down part.”

“Darling, you positively do have the best ideas.”

Her entire body was tensed for impact. It was like spontaneous whiplash the way Myka found her gaze jerking away from Helena. She took a step closer to the edge of the crowd and away from the other woman. 

Helena cleared her throat from behind her.

“It’s too late to pull him out of there now, whatever this is,” Helena spoke, her voice noticeably now a monotone murmur. 

Whatever indeed. Myka could not define the arrangement in front of her. The dark ringleader motioned to Pete to stand by a line of people in the middle of the circle. A young blonde girl of what Myka could guess the age of ten bounced on the spot with an enthusiastic energy. Beside her stood an apathetic looking teenaged boy, his scowl partially covered by a baseball cap and then a smiling teenaged girl of around the same age followed, her dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, there was a glee of anticipation in her eyes as she turned to smirk at the sullen boy beside her. A shy boy of around the age of seven stood still, his fingers half in his mouth as he gazed out at the crowd with wide eyes. And then finally, there was Pete. Her fellow agent was trying to rub the grass stains off of the knees of his jeans and refused to make eye contact with her.

He was going to have more than grass stains to worry about after this was over.

“Now we can start,” the owner spoke. “We don’t do ordinary at this carnival. No raffle at Mr. Electro’s will simply be won by picking a name out of a bin. No, you have to earn it.”

Myka had to admit the man knew how to put on a performance. The crowd hadn’t wavered in their attention from him once.

“Five names were picked randomly from all five of the raffle bins around this very carnival and now those five…” he trailed off, no doubt for effect. “Winners,” he continued, but the word had a slight mocking tone. “Now face a challenge.”

The young boy now had his hand fully in his mouth. Some people had a nervous tick, other’s apparently took biting their nails to a whole level. Myka wondered where the boy’s parents were. 

“Because really, we can’t all be winners,” he carried on and the crowd laughed lightly. “Whoever completes the task will be appointed Queen or King of the carnival for the remainder of the day. We will all be their subjects. Which basically means they get to jump ahead all of the ride lines and play all of the games for free. So do not fear your new overlord...too much.”

Again it was like clockwork the way he smirked after his words and then the crowd laughed.

She heard Helena mumble just behind her right shoulder. It sounded like something along the lines of she’d fear Pete with any kind of power.

It was true. If Pete won, it would go right to his head and make him even more distracted.

“Let’s begin shall we,” he continued. 

Pulling back the flap of his dark suit he pulled a small item from an inside pocket. At first Myka thought it was her imagination that the item was growing larger by the second but the shocked awe that moved through the crowd ensured she was not imagining things. The item in question started as a small knife but then began to grow bigger, until finally the man held a large sword in his grip. If that wasn’t enough it also crackled with electricity and yet the man remained unaffected. The glow of the blue sparks reflected off of his face and twisted his smile into a shadowed slash. The white of his eyes were more prominent in the flickering light, it gave the illusion of rolling shiny marbles bouncing around in his eye sockets. The overall affect of the performance was either terrifying or over the top, it came down to one’s age.

The small boy latched onto Pete’s leg in fright. Pete looked at him in surprise but didn’t try and shake him off.

“Don’t be afraid,” the sparking man’s voice boomed. “You have been chosen. You have the power.”

With those non-comforting words the man jumped down from his crate, the coattails of his old-fashioned suit swinging in the air behind him for a moment. And then without precedent he slammed the sword deep into the ground before him. There it remained with half the blade stuck deep in the grass and the hilt still sparking blue.

“You will try your chance at pulling the sword free from the ground, but only the one who is truly worthy shall be able to do so and then they will be the true winner.”

He bowed.

“Mr. Lattimer you are first.”

Pete glanced around the crowd wearily. A look of confusion was still present on his face. He took a step towards the blue glowing sword. The boy followed still attached to his leg and the crowd laughed.

“Is it safe?” Pete asked.

“Ohhhhh, Mr. Lattimer is afraid to take a chance,” he crowed to the crowd and mocking laughter followed on cue. “Is every choice you make in life a safe choice, sir? There are no safe choices my friend, it is an illusion, there’s only the easy way out. The coward’s way. If you want safe, we might as well put you in a box in the ground now.”

A fork of blue light leapt off of the sword and sparked the ground right by Pete’s feet. Pete leant down and whispered something in the boy’s ear before he picked the boy up off of his leg. He patted the boy on the head affectionately and then walked towards the sword.

“Please tell me Pete hasn’t been goaded into touching what could possibly be the artifact we are looking for?” Helena hissed. “What the hell is wrong with him?”

Before Myka could go down that road, Pete jumped forward as though he could hopscotch through the lightening and grasped the hilt of the sword. 

Myka held her breath.

And nothing happened.

The crowd exhaled a collective breath.

Pete was pulling at the sword, the blue light still sparking around him, but he was unaffected. Pete yanked again but the sword would not budge. He got down on his knees and hugged the hilt as he tried to yank it up with all the strength in his shoulders and knees. It looked painful.

“Well this isn’t embarrassing at all,” Myka murmured.

“It must be a trick of some kind,” Helena added.

“Think the ringleader is a magician?”

“If that is not an artifact than that would be the drawn conclusion.”

“Now, now, Mr. Lattimer, it’s time to move on. You are not the worthy master of the sword’s powers today. There is no shame in that. You took the chance. You conquered your fear. I would say that deserves an applause at least,” the man finished saying with a bellow and waved his arms at the crowd.

Applause lifted up from the crowd.

Pete slumped forward and with a sigh and then stood up.

“The next turn goes to the young lad, Tommy.”

Tommy stood still in the exact spot Pete had left him in. He gazed at the blue light in a combination of awe and fright.

Pete leant down beside him. He whispered something to the boy again and Tommy’s face broke out into a smile. Whatever Pete had said, had given Tommy the courage to bounce forward and pull on the sword without a second thought.

The sword didn’t budge an inch.

Tommy look deflated but he moved away quickly, his feet carrying him off to the right of the crowd. Myka was relieved to see a woman pick him up out of the crowd. Tommy’s arms wrapped around her neck and she gave him a peck on his cheek. 

The teenaged girl moved forward before the ringleader could speak again. Her steps confident as she strode forward and yanked.

But again, nothing happened, except for the immediate scowl on her face.

She moved away, her shoulders slumped for a moment before she held her neck up straighter and turned around to watch the next person.

“Don’t fret, perhaps your brother will win and he can share in the spoils with you,” the man spoke, his eyes moving between her and the baseball capped teenager who stepped up with the least amount of enthusiasm Myka had ever seen.

The girl stuck her tongue out at her brother, but he didn’t seem to care.

He pulled and when it didn’t budge, he seemed to care even less.

“Oh dear,” the man began, his voice taking on a theatrical tone of worry. “Four chances and the sword hasn’t even been loosened. Only one chance left. Maybe, today is a day with no winner. We’ve all had those types of days.”

The crowd murmured with mirth again. It might as well have been canned laughter. The predictability of how he strummed the crowd and their reaction started to irritate her.

“Here goes our last chance.”

The blonde girl eagerly moved forward, her steps stumbling as she came closer to the sword, a timid smile flashed across her face before she charged the rest of the way, jumped on the spot and pulled the hilt up as she leapt in the air.

And the sword easily came up out of the ground free. The crowd gasped in awed surprised.

The little girl held it up in her grip. A wide smile stretched across her young face.

“We have our Queen!” the man yelled and the people cheered.

He swiped the sword out of her hand. It no longer sparked but it glowed with a blue hue. Spinning it in his hand it came to a stop as he placed the blade on the girl’s left shoulder and then lifted it up over her head and rested it on her right shoulder.

“I decree that you shall live on as our immortal Queen of Mr. Electro’s carnival. May your will be done,” he spoke and then bowed.

He lifted the sword up and spun it around once more, as he did so the sword stopped glowing and started to decrease in size, until the blade was only the size of the dagger it had started out as and he pocketed it.

“I expect all of you to give your Queen the right a way,” he yelled out towards the crowd. “And who knows, maybe tomorrow will be your lucky day to conquer your fears and have your dreams made here.”

The little girl ran off into the crowd at an exuberant speed, her mind already racing on which ride to jump the line in first, no doubt.

The crowd started to disperse and Myka and Helena made their way towards Pete.

“Are you done making a ridiculous spectacle of yourself?” Helena snarled.

Pete rolled his eyes. “Relax. Like I was supposed to know that was going to happen.”

“Half this day has been a waste of time because of you.”

“Can we save this till later? I’m starting to get a headache.”

“No.”

“Let me have some of your water.”

He grabbed the bottle in her hands. Only a small amount was left and he swallowed half of it in one gulp.

“Ugh, it’s warm, so very warm. Why is it so warm? It’s probably mostly all your spit too.”

Helena calmly reached over and squeezed the plastic bottle as he raised it up to his mouth to finish the rest in spite of his complaints. Her action caused the last bit of water to spurt out of the bottle and into his face.

“What the hell,” Pete spurted.

Helena opened her mouth with a retort but Myka was half-heartedly listening to their bickering. Something had caught her attention a few feet over. The dark suited man was viewing the crowd as a few people stopped to speak with him before they went on their way. It was when he rolled up his sleeves that Myka found her feet taking her forward.

The man looked up as she approached and he took a step towards her. Pete and Helena’s bickering was background noise just over her shoulder. 

“Hello,” the man said, the cadence of his voice held an even more velvety tone when he wasn’t bellowing to a crowd.

Up close Myka could see that his facial hair was trimmed perfectly and that his pale skin was unmarked. His eyes were brown without a speck of any other color dotted through them. He was a little older than her she figured.

As she scrutinized him, he smiled at her. It was a much smaller smile than the one he had displayed to the crowd. It was a less mocking smile. It was almost kind if it wasn’t for the still cocky knowing look in his eyes. That hadn’t vanished since the performance. The combination made for a man who looked at you like he had secrets to share and gain. Like secrets were foreplay. He was an attractive man and he knew it. His smile and the way he leaned towards Myka was evidence of this.

But none of this is what had truly captivated her attention. What she had noticed most of all were the many tattoos that covered his bare arms. His rolled up sleeves revealed that no patch of skin on his toned arms was untouched by a spot of ink. Standing closer to him she could see through the first few opened buttons on his white dress shirt that his chest was covered in tattoos as well. A few even popped up on his neck just above the collar of his shirt. 

Gazing over them, Myka noted that most appeared to be faces of people, a few normal looking ones, a few done in an abstract way. Two snake tattoos curled around his wrists.

“You like my tattoos do you?” he spoke, his voice breaking her focus.

“I imagine that they cover your whole body.”

“Would you like to test that theory?” his smile evolved into a smirk and he even winked at her. For a moment she thought he appeared even younger than she had suspected. Cool collected ringleader to sleazy come on tended to have that affect. His words though remained smooth, his looks played in his favor. He was a charmer who was used to saying whatever he could and got away with it.

Myka was unfazed as he looked her up and down.

“That’s not why I’m interested in them.”

“That’s a shame,” he replied and he stepped even closer. “What’s your name?”

It had gone remarkably quiet behind her. Pete and Helena were no longer bickering but were listening in.

“Myka Bering.”

“Myka,” he spoke, wrapping her name around his tongue in a way that really did feel inappropriate with the amount of kids that were running around.

“Agent Myka Bering,” she said.

His eyes flashed at that and he took a step back, putting some acceptable space between them for a moment.

“Agent…” he trailed off.

“And I suppose,” she began. “That your name would be…Mr. Dark.”

A shriek escaped through his mouth uncontrollably as he threw his head back and laughed. The laughter shook through his body as mirth danced in his eyes. His smile grew wider and his focus only continued to grow on her.

“My, my, what do we have here,” he spoke, his eyes roving up her body in a less sexual way and in a more intrigued fashion. “Someone finally worthy of my carnival I think.”

He no longer ogled her. Instead, he gazed at her eyes, never breaking eye contact. 

“So it is Mr. Dark then?”

“When I’m working yes, everyone calls me Mr. Dark, but,” he stopped speaking and leaned in to continue with a whisper. “On the off hours I’m known as Jim Williams.” He pulled back with a Cheshire cat like smile. He was enjoying himself. 

“The tattoos, they’re not all real. Just playing the part.”

“Is all of this just playing the part then? The Dust-Witch and-“

“Oh, have you already seen her? And how was it?” he inquired with delight.

“Your Dust-Witch isn’t actually blind.”

“Ah, yes, I guess that takes a degree of authenticity away from it, but if she really plays it like she believes she’s blind, maybe the people will too. Her second sight will be that much more powerful.”

“Should I expect a jinxed lightning rod salesman as well?”

He laughed quietly.

“Myka. Myka. You, my dear, should have been Queen of the carnival. You are the only one who truly sees it for what it is.”

“And what is that?”

“You know.”

Myka didn’t break his gaze. 

“By the pricking of my thumbs,” she began.

“Something wicked this way comes,” he finished.

For a moment they just stared at each other. She tried to get a further read on him but his smile was a mask.

“Uh, what the hell does Macbeth have to do with any of this right now?” Pete called out from behind her.

Myka turned around to face him.

“And yes, I only know it is Macbeth because H.G. angrily mumbled it under her breath, but still, what the-“

“Your friends?” Mr. Dark interrupted.

Both Pete and Helena were openly scowling at them. Myka shrugged and turned back with nod.

“My fellow agents.”

“But they do not share your love of literature then? They do not know the world with which they have entered.”

“I doubt many people would pick up on what you are trying to emulate.”

“But it is a classic.”

“No doubt for some.”

“And are you a fan of Mr. Bradbury’s work?”

“Of course.”

“Hey, I recognize that name,” Pete yelled out again. “But I’m not sure why,” he mumbled to himself.

Mr. Dark ignored him. “Do you like what I have done with the place then?”

Myka laughed. “ I doubt my opinion matters very much.”

“Oh, no, it is only your opinion I want. In all our travels no one else has yet to catch on to the secret.”

“Is it truly a secret? Designing your carnival after a book.”

“Well just like any book there are secrets between the words, between the pages and I promise you, Myka Bering, my carnival has many more secrets to delight in.”

“Is that a confession?”

He blinked in confusion. “Confession?”

“We are agents. Agents at your carnival. It isn’t our day off despite what Pete’s actions may have shown.”

“Hmm,” he hummed and leaned back on his heels. “What then are you investigating and how can I be of service?”

“Disappearances. Currently of one Melissa Freeze, Jacob Roads and Bill Cornwell.”

“Ah, I see, I had heard murmurings of that but then the Sheriff had told me Melissa’s friends had made a new statement and they said she’d gone off with her boyfriend and Jacob is known for taking off from time to time and as for the other, I couldn’t say. We get a lot of people through here each time, and I don’t get to personally meet all of them.”

“And what about the fact that people have been disappearing from each of your carnival’s stops in various towns?”

“I would have to say, present me with more solid evidence Agent Bering. I am but at your service to help but I do not know where to start. It would be a horrible thing to think that my carnival is responsible for any harm to anyone.”

“You do remember the book right? You know the fictional Mr. Dark’s carnival was a playground for good versus evil?” she challenged.

He chuckled. The laugh started low in his stomach, it rumbled and shook through his ribs. The action caused one of the tattooed faces on the skin of his chest to look like it was winking at her. 

“Sometimes a book is just a book. I am merely aspiring to the nostalgia of the times. Appearances are just appearances. Everything that you see before you is just a dream of mine. A place where others can come and dream of something different for a little while. ”

Myka pondered his words. She found a familiar line run through her head. 

“All those years living only other men's lives. Dreaming only other men's dreams. What a waste,” she quoted the words from Mr. Bradbury’s work.

If before she had pleased Mr. Dark, she had now surpassed any of his expectations. The smile that never left his face, only morphed its degree, became that of a snake that had eaten the canary. 

“Sometimes a man can learn more from other men's dreams than he can from his own. Come visit me, if you wish to improve your education,” he spoke; quoting the second half of the exchange they were only versed in.

Reaching out in the air between him, his moves were slow and deliberate, gauging her reaction as he picked her hand up in his and kissed the back of it as he half bowed.

She was unmoved but allowed his performance to continue. The longer the subject was before her, the more time she could evaluate. 

Myka felt a shift in the air behind her, it sounded like a brief scuffle but she paid it no mind as Mr. Dark’s melody of words continued.

“How can I be of service to the Queen of my carnival?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably note that this story will incorporate my own take on certain story lines that occurred later in the series. I was not thrilled with the direction of the last two seasons and even less so with certain tropes but for some crazy reason I have decided to take them on and expand on them in this story and that will become apparent, just in case you wonder why some things aren't following the show's history.
> 
> Also as this story continues, there will be some minor spoilers for the book Something Wicked This Way Comes.

>   
>  “But no man's a hero to himself.”  
> 

Sharp, stinging, crackling heat traveled up Helena’s spine. There was nowhere for it to go and her head felt the pressure. It was an angry heat, a heat that that set every nerve on fire with the desire for destruction.

She was going to explode unless she found a release. Her heartbeat was going a mile a minute.

Taking a step forward towards the symptom of her disease she found her way immediately blocked by a long thick arm. A thick arm attached to an annoying broad shoulder. She couldn’t think to give the entity a name during her crisis.

“Remove your arm out of my way,” she spoke through clenched teeth.

“No can do,” Pete said. 

She moved to by pass him but he followed.

“Look, what are you going to do?” he continued, his voice lowering. “March over there and stand right between Myka and Mr. Dark and beg her to pay attention to you instead.”

“That’s not what I…” she trailed off, her eyes flashing back to Myka and the man who they’d come to know as Mr. Dark. 

Pete scoffed as he pulled his arm down. “It’s all over your face.”

“My face is a closed book.”

“Ha ha,” Pete started to laugh and then coughed when Mr. Dark looked at them over Myka’s shoulder. He kept his voice low when he spoke next, “Maybe when you are being all evil, which by the way we now know the signs for, so it’s not like that’s a secret. Closed book equals bad stuff. But your face is an open book with pages ripped out on the floor and the audio version going on in the background when it comes to when you watch Myka.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means, metaphor or a simile or an analogy, duh.”

“I detest your use of language more and more every day.”

“Well stand and detest it here. Myka and the dude are just talking, and beside a bit of innuendo he has not committed a crime at the moment and she’s investigating.”

“Oh, all of sudden you are about the job. You do know that you most likely touched the artifact during your little contest?”

“The sword, pfft. I feel fine.”

A look of worry passed over his face.

“I mean, I think I do.”

“Who can tell what is normal for you. Maybe you will disappear too like all the others. We could only be so lucky.”

Pete glared at her. “Don’t sound so happy. Who would be here to stop you from being an idiot.”

“I am not being an idiot.”

“Fine, but you aren’t thinking straight. Myka is getting an in. It’s not like she’s going to give him an…in.”

Helena slapped the back of her hand against his stomach and hissed, “Do not talk like that about Myka.”

“Oopfph,” Pete grumbled as he grabbed his stomach and bent over. “Ugh, H.G., my stomach is full, did you forget?”

“Not in the least.”

Pete took a few deep breaths and then stood up right with a wince. 

“Look, Myka is talking to him, she can get him to hand it over to her to try neutralizing. She’s finding stuff out. Lets not interrupt it because of personal feelings. ”

“It’s not personal feelings.”

“Oh I think it is,” Pete scoffed.

“It is not.”

Pete did an impression of a horrible whiny British accent when he spoke next, “Quoting literature, but that’s our thing, Myka.”

Helena glared at him with a force that made it feel like she was finally expelling some of the fire she felt inside of her and if Pete’s further wince was of any evidence, she was succeeding.

“Be quiet.”

Pete was quiet almost a full minute before he spoke again.

“Okay, look, I’m not disagreeing with you that I don’t like him salivating over Myka like she’s some cotton candy dipped in caramel apple sauce with popcorn drizzled on top-“

“Stop.”

“Myka can take care of herself. She’s got this. We let her have this.”

Helena raised an eyebrow at him.

“I am not questioning Myka’s capabilities.”

“Good. Then stay still.”

She opened her mouth to retort but he continued.

“If it helps, I don’t like the guy either. I’ve got a bad vibe, and I’m trying not to judge, but it’s the tattoos, so the tattoos.”

“And his eyes, and his stupid smile and his lack of awareness for personal space.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” Pete laughed.

“I just did,” she responded seriously.

“Yah…never mind.”

They both silently watched as Mr. Dark laughed at something Myka said and then pulled the small knife out of his jacket. Holding a purple glove Myka placed the knife into a neutralizing bag and nothing sparked.

“I’m in the clear,” Pete sighed with relief.

“We’ll see, who knows what else you’ve touched or ingested.”

“Alright, tone it down. I’m just trying to help you out. You want to continue to sulk just because Mr. Dark is playing with your favourite toy, fine by me.”

“Myka is not my toy. Myka is not a toy, period.”

“Really, you sure act like it,” Pete spoke, his voice taking on a weird edge. The tone shifting, his eyes weren’t focusing. “You tried to keep her all to yourself, to manipulate just for you and then you threw her away and then you wanted to play again but couldn’t and when you finally could you just put her away on some shelf, waiting-“

Helena reacted without thinking, her arm snapping out to hit Pete again in the stomach. The force of the hit was going to be a lot harder but he was ready for her. Pete caught her arm, he held her steady, and blinked furiously in surprise. After a few seconds his eyes focused on her and he frowned.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I don’t know why I said that. I’m sorry.”

He did indeed appear to be very sorry and confused. He let her arm go and rubbed his temples.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have a headache. It comes and goes. It must be a sugar high,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

Dropping her arm back to her side, Helena felt a frown settle on her face. All the anger she had crackling inside of her started to dim. Instead she felt heavy and too worn down for the energy of a raging fire.

“It doesn’t matter,” she mumbled without looking at him. “It’s true isn’t it? Its what everyone thinks. It’s what Myka thinks. It’s what I-”

“I don’t know what Myka thinks and neither do you,” Pete added solemnly.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

“Just…” Pete began and trailed off. 

She looked at him. The lines of his face were stretching in a serious manner.

“Just what?”

“Just calm down, ok. You and Myka…you haven’t been anything for a long time.”

Helena looked away.

“I don’t know what the extent of any of it has ever been, Myka never really talked about it. I just know I saw you guys kissing one time in one of the warehouse aisles, but that was just before Egypt and I was trying to be cool with it and not…“

Again there was another awkward beat.

“How were you being cool with it? You never stopped giving me a hard time,” Helena couldn’t help but ask.

“Umm, I didn’t acknowledge the supreme hotness and also I didn’t tell Artie. Do you know how difficult both those things were? And also the hard time was kind of warranted it turned out, remember? But I did it for Myka.”

She tapped her foot against the ground and avoided looking at him.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice surprising even her at its sincerity.

“I still don’t know if you’re a good thing for Myka or not, but I am glad you are back where you are.”

She could feel the snap of an angry remark building in her throat, but she swallowed it down.

“You don’t get vibes about that?”

“About what?”

“About Myka and I?”

“Not really, not anymore.”

“What’s that mean?”

Pete shrugged. “Well if I’m not having a bad vibe that’s a plus right away.”

“But you don’t have a good vibe?”

“I don’t get vibes all the time about everything you know.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“The point,” he began and then stopped. “Usually, if I’m not having a vibe either way, things are neutral.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s usually up to those people what happens next.”

She was silent for a moment and then mumbled quietly to herself.

“I heard that.”

“Yes, well it does seem like a useless skill to have.”

“You just mean right now, for you,” he said with a small smile. “I ain’t going to tell you what to do. It’s your choice.”

“You just told me to stand still.”

“It was polite advice and hey, you took it. How very polite of you in return.”

“Well I’ll politely ask you to shove it-“

“Shove what? And why are we being so polite about it?” Myka’s voice interrupted them.

Helena found herself sputtering in front of Myka at her sudden approach. She could see Mr. Dark disappearing into the crowd behind them.

“Uhh…”

“Oh, you know the British, Mykes, always so polite,” Pete spoke up. “H.G. was just giving me a lesson in manners and pip pip.” 

Myka eyed the both of them suspiciously.

“Okay.”

“So what was all of that about with Mr. Dark over there? How’d you know his name? Something about a book, right? Because I gotta tell you, if we are trapped in a book again, this is way less cool, last time you and me got to be in black and white and-“

“I know, Pete. And no we aren’t trapped in a book.”

“You were both trapped in a book once? What kind?” Helena asked with mild surprise.

“Some nineteen forties hard-boiled detective novel. You should have seen this nerd. Having the time of her life. All,” he paused as he put his hands on his hips, cocked them at an angle, pushed his chest out like he had boobs and pouted his lips. To top it all off, his voice was his best attempt at a feminine huskiness when he continued, “I’ve heard that tune a hundred times, same song, different key, now sing me the chorus.”

“Is that supposed to be me?” Myka deadpanned.

“Well, yah, I mean without that ‘wowzah ‘dem boobies dress’, I can’t get the full effect. But it’s close enough.”

“I don’t think so.”

Pete took a step towards her swinging his hips as he went. He leaned in and lifted her chin up with one finger. “Save it for the coppers,” he drawled.

Myka slapped his hand away. A smile was breaking out on her face even as she tried to hide it. 

“You aren’t doing it right.”

“Fine, I’m not the one who knew all the dialogue since they were twelve.”

“Is that book like those old black and white films with the detectives? I’ve seen them on late a night,” Helena asked, once again entranced by the back story of some event that had occurred in Pete and Myka’s life while she had been absent.

“Yup. And I was the handsome detective with my…” he paused as Myka sent him a knowing look and he continued. “My partner ‘His Girl Friday’.”

Myka looked pleased for a moment.

“We had to solve the mystery in the book but also it turned out the author was trapped in the book because…ugh, well, my point is, you would have loved it H.G.,” Pete finished with excitement.

A common feeling of regret cut her right down the middle but she smiled nonetheless, pleased to think that the man in front of her was thinking of her all the same. She looked at Myka, but the other woman was rubbing the back of her neck and looking down at her feet distractedly. 

“But we aren’t trapped in a book this time,” she spoke up, directing at Myka.

Myka looked up. “No.”

“Then what does this carnival have to do with a book?” Pete asked.

“Mr. Dark or Jim Williams as he is known in real life is a big fan of the book Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury,” Myka answered.

“Oh! I do know that name! In high school we had to read that novel he wrote about the firefighters who burn books. It skeeved me out.”

“Yes, that author.”

“What is the connection with his book and this carnival?” Helena asked. “I’m assuming this is one of your later twentieth century books.”

“Yes. He wrote it in nineteen sixty-two, it’s about a supernatural traveling carnival.”

“And this Mr. Dark is a character in the book?” Helena prompted.

“In the book Mr. Dark owns the carnival.”

“He have those creepy tattoos too?” Pete asked.

Myka nodded. “Each tattoo is of a soul Mr. Dark has trapped. He has the power to control that person. He’s the bad guy of the story.”

Helena and Pete’s eyes opened wide in tandem, a dual action of vindication on their part.

Pete whistled. “That sounds way evil. Why the hell would anyone want to copy that?”

Myka shrugged. “Well, it would depend on your definition of evil.”

“How is that?” Helena asked, intrigued.

“Mr. Dark provides a carnival that allows people to indulge in their wildest fantasies. It is a playground for secrets and truths. For some they get what they desire not realizing the consequences until later. It all depends on whether or not the consequences are worse to that character than the satisfaction.”

“What kind of consequences? Because I take it back, maybe this Mr. Dark isn’t so bad,” Pete said.

Helena rolled her eyes. “You would immediately think that, with your impulse control at an all time low since we stepped into this place.”

Pete narrowed his eyes at her. “Really? We’re going there? Who had impulse control issues a few minutes ago?”

The two of them locked their gazes, neither backing down.

Myka cleared her throat and then frowned. “Anyway,” she started. “Basically, it’s your usual selling your soul to the devil kind of deal. Not great even if you get a free candy apple, Pete.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t sell my soul for a candy apple.”

Helena scoffed. “Sure.”

“What? Maybe two candy apples.”

“There it is,” she added.

“Besides the whole playground for evil thing, the book is about a carnival that is old-fashioned. Jim Williams could just be a fan wanting to invoke the feeling of the time period,” Myka continued.

“And that isn’t a crime,” Pete added. 

“It could be if it is affecting people against their will,” Helena spoke up. She glanced around the crowd and started to feel like everything was closing in on her even in the open air. “People are entrapped by this place. There’s a strong energy.” She took a deep breath and scanned the area as far as she could see. “Does anyone find it peculiar that no one is using their phone?”

“What?”

“Actually…” Myka began and trailed off as she looked around.

“I mean that I have noticed that this century with the progress of modern technology people are usually not without their smart phones constantly in their hands. Taking pictures, texting, updating those online books with faces.”

“Facebook, grandma,” Pete laughed.

She glared at him. “My point still stands.”

“It’s true,” Myka added. “I mean not everyone is like that but there should be a good chunk of people using them and no one is.”

“It is more than just the appearance of the carnival that is emulating the time period of this book you speak of it. It’s the entire atmosphere.”

“How is that possible? What artifact could be working on this large of a scale?” Myka spoke.

“Did Mr. Dark give you any clues?” Pete asked.

“Not really. He did say he would let us into the carnival for free for the rest of the weekend so we can investigate.”

“More like so he can keep an eye on us probably or it’s a trap.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he really knows nothing. Books aren’t evil, Pete.”

“No, just the choices people choose to make with the knowledge they gain from them.”

Helena found herself looking at him in disbelief. Myka wore a similar expression.

“What?” Pete blurted out. “Sometimes I can say smart things too.”

“Yes, but the bar does seem to be low for that standard,” Helen retorted back and smirked.

Pete’s upper lip twitched into a snarl as he opened his mouth to respond.

“You two no longer getting along?” Myka asked before he could.

“No, we are,” Pete chose to answer for them both after taking a deep breath. “We’ve just decided to be more real with each other.”

“Right,” Helena acquiesced; Pete was her only lifeline at the moment, as much as she detested the thought, she didn’t want him ignoring her as well.

Myka folded her arms and raised her eyebrows at them but her face didn’t reveal any emotion. Something Helena was beginning to get used to. It only seemed to get worse the longer they stayed at the carnival. Although, this was the longest amount of time they had been stuck together since she had been back. At the Warehouse and B & B, Myka was extremely efficient in limiting the amount of time they would be alone together. The other woman tended to play it off like it was a coincidence that they were never scheduled for inventory together, or that Myka always seemed to have something else to do during any down time. Helena knew with no small amount sadness that the action was of design. Now, being thrown together on a mission, Myka had less of an opportunity to escape and the consequences of this was obvious in the stiffness of her shoulders and the firm line of her lips. 

“Un-huh,” Myka murmured. “In between all that realness, we should call Claudia and see if there’s anything about artifacts pertaining to Ray Bradbury.”

“Good idea,” Pete said enthusiastically. It was little over the top.

And of all of the things to be annoyed about with Pete, Helena found she couldn’t openly dismiss his enthusiasm again, whether it was real or forced, it was the only thing picking up the space in between all the words that weren’t being said.

“Hey, is there anything about disappearing people in Something Wicked This Way Comes? Maybe the artifact has to do with something in the story,” he added.

Myka’s head quirked to the side in a sign of deep thought. “Actually,” she started and then paused. 

“What is it?” Helena asked.

“People in the books do sort of vanish but in most cases they are still present, just in a different way.”

“What does that even mean?” Pete almost whined.

“The carnival alters them.”

“How?” Helena pushed.

“We need to go find the Merry-Go-Round,” Myka replied.

“Aw, come on, that’s like the lamest ride,” Pete fully whined this time.

“Not in the book it isn’t,” Myka said. “Let’s go.”

Myka started to take off. Pete followed.

“Ugh, the Merry-Go-Round, what I’m I, six?”

Helena opened her mouth but Pete had already raised his arm up behind him.

“Don’t say anything. I don’t want to really keep it real. Come on.”

Helena reluctantly closed her mouth and followed.

 

The sun had set by the time they had arrived at the grounds the Merry-Go-Round stood on. A trip back to the car for a can of neutralizer goo and then trying to navigate their way across to the far end of the carnival by a patch of woods had been made more difficult by the older kids who had come to partake in the carnival. 

But now the three of them stood, noticeably alone and unbothered by the rest of the rowdy event in front of the ride. The ‘Out of Order’ sign that was up in front of it was no doubt part of the reason for their solitude. As well as it’s positioning, for a great big oak tree stood tall and threatening beside the ride. It’s long branches hovering low and providing coverage from the rest of the grounds. People walking by wouldn’t even spare a glance at it unless they knew where to look for it. 

“Out of Order,” Pete murmured. “How hard is it to run a few stationary horses? This is child’s play. Literally.”

Helena’s eyes moved from the shadowed horses. The dark of the night cloaked each of them with a thick blackness. Only the streams of moonlight that scattered through the tree’s branches allowed for any light here and there. Helena could tell the horses were of a Victorian design. It was a familiar sight in comparison to the other rides, there was nothing flashy about this one, the colors were dull, the horse’s eyes and mouths grotesque in the limited moonlight. She wondered if it were lighter out if they would even look less disturbing. She’d found them a ghastly design even in her time.

Pete jumped up on to the stationary platform, his hand reaching out to caress one of the horses’ saddles.

“Pete!” Myka hissed. “Get off of the ride right now.”

There was an urgency to her voice that caused Pete to jump back down without question. It was an urgency that caused Helena to watch Myka more closely. Myka stood off to the side with her eyes absorbing every detail of the ride. Her fingers curled around the collar of her jacket and pulled the fabric closer. Helena frowned at the action. The day had only gotten warmer, even at night there was a sticky heat to the air and yet Myka recoiled from it and hunkered down as far as she could in her coat.

“The ride is broken. What is the big deal?” Pete inquired.

“I heard it working earlier,” Helena spoke up.

“What?”

“Just before noon, I heard the music of the carousel. What else would make that noise?”

Myka stepped forward towards her. 

“You did?” she asked desperately.

Helena stuttered for her words when she noticed Myka was beginning to pale at her revelation.

“Yes, I am sure of it. It is the only thing that I noticed that was familiar to me. I took comfort in it.”

“Shit,” Myka swore out of nowhere.

“Again, what?” Pete asked hurriedly.

Myka moved closer towards the Merry-Go-Round. Taking a flashlight out of her jacket she turned it on and directed it towards the center of the ride.

“Myka?” he continued.

Myka continued to inspect the ride; she silently walked around it and disappeared for a moment. Helena felt her breath catch in her throat. She didn’t understand why she was suddenly worried Myka wouldn’t come back around the other side.

“Apparently, the things you take comfort in H.G. are bad.”

Helena didn’t speak until she saw Myka complete her circle and come back their way.

“Why is this bad?” Helena exhaled more than spoke.

“In the book the Merry-Go-Round is out of order, but not really, Mr. Dark uses it periodically.”

“To do what? What does it do?”

“Depending on which way the Merry-Go Round is going-“

“They only go one way and that is forward,” Pete interrupted.

Myka openly scowled at him. As the day was wearing on she was becoming even less adept at hiding her annoyance with them whenever the mood struck her.

“If you had let me finish, I could tell you that in the book Mr. Dark’s Merry-Go-Round is capable of going both backwards or forwards-“

“Why?” he interrupted again.

“Would you shut up,” Helena found herself snapping on Myka’s behalf. “And let her finish. How is it possible that you keep moving from brief moments of sensibility and then the focus of a seven year old?”

“Whoa,” Pete said as he held his hands up. “Me? How about you? You’ve been a ball of anxiety since noon. And Myka, you…” he trailed off as Myka’s raised chin challenged him to continue. “Well to be honest nothing new there of late, just maybe mega amplified.”

No one spoke for a moment. No one seemed prepared to argue with the truth. Not even Helena in that moment.

“Are you finished?” Myka’s cold tone broke the tension.

“Sure, whatever,” Pete replied flippantly. “Continue on with the forward and the backward.”

He was sulking like a child. It was no help to his case but at least he was remaining quiet.

“Going forward allows Mr. Dark to increase the age of whoever sits on the ride. And then going backwards allows that person to become younger.”

Pete stopped sulking at that tidbit of info, his eyes flashed with interest.

“Really?”

“Really,” Myka replied seriously.

“Is that bad?”

“Yes, it never ended well for anyone in the book that rode it. Bad stuff.”

“But if this is an artifact, maybe it’s not exactly like that, as it is in the book. Maybe it’s not automatically bad. Could just be this Mr. Dark’s influence.”

“If it’s an artifact, it’s dangerous, Pete.”

“Myka, not all artifacts are bad. Some do good. You and I know that,” he spoke quietly, his face morphing back into the image of man weighted with knowledge of half a lifetime. He sought out Myka’s gaze.

“Is that what you think?” Myka responded quietly, her voice level like she was fighting for control.

Helena found the space between them had sucked out all the air. She couldn’t speak and if she could have, she wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t sure what was being challenged.

“It’s what I know,” Pete responded absolutely.

Myka scoffed, “Yah, well I can promise you that if this ride is an artifact there is no happy ending. You can’t bend it to your will.”

Pete reacted to her words like he had been wounded. The conversation was on a level Helena couldn’t comprehend. 

“Jeez, Mykes, I had no idea you were that angry about it. Do you know how crazy that is-“

“Stop,” Myka hissed through her closed jaw. “We’re not talking about this.”

“I think we do need to-“

“Well lucky for me, I don’t care what you think. So shut up,” Myka snapped, her eyes wild, her jaw unclenching as her mouth twisted into an ugly snarl. Closed off Myka was gone and in her place was a frothing wild animal.

“Okay,” Helena interjected as she stepped between them with her hands raised. “Okay, everyone calm down. This place is setting us all on edge. Let’s focus on the job right now. And then you two can work out whatever else it is that I am not allowed to be privy too with your doublespeak.”

Both Pete and Myka focused their glares on her.

“There, see, you’re both annoyed with me now. Let’s just call it a truce and move on to neutralizing the ride.”

“Fine,” Myka hurled the one word across the air like a bullet but immediately backed down from glaring at them both.

“Okay,” Pete complied.

“Okay,” Helena found herself repeating.

When neither of the other agents chose to speak anything further, she continued, “If this ride is working the way it does in the book and is an artifact, then the people who have disappeared may actually still be here, just aged in some way, is that correct, Myka?”

“Yes,” Myka replied stiffly after a moment, her body turned away to the darkness of the forest’s edge. “That is correct.”

“All right, then Pete let’s give it a goo,” she said as she pointed towards the can and attached hosed he was carrying.

“Where do we start? I don’t have enough for this whole thing. We’d need a truck full.”

“Yes, it does seem-“

“The power box,” Myka interjected. “We need to neutralizer the source of power.”

“Right,” Helena added, annoyed she didn’t think of that first.

The three of them walked around to the back where Myka had seen the power box. Myka focused her flashlight towards it. It was a small rusted box that didn’t even have a lock on it. The door to it almost disintegrated off of its hinges when Pete opened it delicately with a gloved hand. Despite it’s condition all its parts appeared to be in order. From Helena’s inspection she couldn’t see any damage to the power source that would cause the ride to be out of order.

“The coast clear?” Pete asked.

Myka and Helena both kept an eye out but so far no one had wandered over.

“Yes,” Helena replied.

“Here goes nothing,” he said as he sprayed the purple goo inside of the box and all over it’s parts.

“Nothing being the correct word it appears,” Helena observed when nothing reacted. The goo just sat on top until it started to drip down to the grass due to gravity.

Pete stood up and directed the nozzle of the spray towards the ride. Purple goo hit one of the antique horses but no sparks occurred either.

“It’s not the artifact,” Myka murmured dejectedly.

“Perhaps, it is as you suggest, that Jim Williams is merely a huge fan of Bradbury’s work and maybe whatever is making people disappear or has a hold over this carnival has nothing to do with the book.”

“That is entirely possible,” Myka mumbled. Helena noticed how tried she suddenly looked when a warm breeze blew through the branches and caused the moonlight to flicker across the other woman’s drawn face. 

“Which means there goes our lead and we are back to square one,” Pete added.

“I think we should still have Claudia look into the author and see if there have been any past pings with his work. Just in case,” Helena said. 

“At least that is a plan,” Pete concurred. “Should we call it a night then?”

“It has been a long day. We can get an early start tomorrow.”

“Myka?” Pete asked quietly.

Myka took off towards the crowded carnival without a word.

“Let’s go then,” her soft words eventually followed when she turned to see if they were coming. And Helena appreciated that she could see Myka in the tired eyes and slight frown on her face even as she started to close it all off again, gone was the snarling beast that was a horrid stranger to Helena.

“Now, you horsies stay, you hear me, stay,” Pete’s voice carried behind her.

“Pete, come on, time to leave,” Helena called out without looking back.

Although the Merry-Go-Round had proved not to be an artifact, Helena found it had a haunting presence much like the rest of the carnival and she couldn’t wait to leave the grounds as quickly as possible. 

 

It wasn’t until they were three streets over from the carnival, that Helena felt she could breathe properly again without the warm pressure on her chest that had been constantly building throughout the day. 

The three of them were stuck in one room in one of the few motels that wasn’t booked up. People were flooding into town to visit the carnival from surrounding areas. They hadn’t or, Artie hadn’t had the foresight to book them rooms beforehand.

The idea of the three of them stuck under one roof after the day they had had was anything but ideal. But since leaving the carnival, all three of them had deflated.

Myka was quieter but less scowling.

Helena was still concerned but felt less anxious.

Pete seemed to gain back his focus. And his focus was presently on how sick his stomach felt. He’d strangely admitted to them as they drove towards the motel that he had snuck a cotton candy and another corn dog at some point. 

His punishment was his own fault but Myka had silently stopped the car and gone into a pharmacy to get him something for his stomach.

He’d forgone on dinner, taken his medicine and fallen asleep almost immediately on the pull out couch.

Helena had opted to go across the street to a diner to pick something up for her and Myka. The diner had been practically empty.

“All my usual customers are at the carnival,” the cook had offered grumpily.

Dinner was a quiet affair as Myka spoke to Claudia on all she knew about Ray Bradbury’s book over the Farnsworth. Afterwards Myka had wordlessly gone to bed on one of the two single beds.

Helena tried drifting off to sleep but the noise from the carnival’s rides and the crowd still managed to carry over across town. It mocked her. She got up and quietly closed the opened window by the couch and was able to fall into a light sleep.

She couldn’t say what woke her up at just past three in the morning but Helena was suddenly awake. Her eyes blinked wearily at the digital alarm clock. She tried closing her eyes and falling back asleep but when she opened them again; only ten minutes had gone by and she felt restless. By then her eyes began to adjust to the darkness in the room and she was struck by the absence of one body. Bolting up right she looked towards the bathroom across the room but the door was wide open and the light was off.

“Pete,” she hissed.

Pete rolled over and mumbled something in his sleep. Helena slipped off of the bed and ran her hand over Myka’s discarded blankets. They were cold. Any body heat hadn’t warmed the bed for some time.

“Pete,” she said frantically.

“What?” he mumbled and opened one eye up.

By then she was hovering over his makeshift bed.

“Myka is gone,” she blurted out, her eyes dancing around the room with a frantic need.

“What?” he continued, not adding anything more to conversation but as he rubbed his eyes he began to look more awake.

“She is not in bed. She is not in the room.”

“Okay, okay,” he said in a way that failed to provide any comfort. “Let’s not panic.”

Helena reached over and grabbed one of his pillows and whacked him with it in the shoulder.

“I will panic as much as I like.”

“Yes, I can see that. I just mean Myka doesn’t sleep that well anymore. Let me find my phone.”

He began to search the bed, his hand shifting under the sheets. Helena stood still, her body humming with minor vibrations like the taught string of a guitar. She was ready to lose it any second.

Pete moved up towards the head of the couch, his hands moving between the gaps in the bed. As he did so his head got caught in the curtains of the window. Reaching up, he detangled himself and something caught his attention outside.

“You can relax, Myka is sitting outside,” he said calmly.

Helena jumped onto the bed and moved over to where Pete was. Glancing out the window she saw with relief that Myka was indeed sitting just outside their room in a plastic chair. Her head was bent downwards as she read a book under the light from above their door. 

Helena moved to get off the bed and headed for the door. Pete’s hand gently came down on her shoulder.

“Whoa there,” he said. 

“I’m going to see if she is alright.”

“I get that, but I don’t think it’s the best thing right now.”

She faced him with an indescribable look. 

“This isn’t new. Myka doesn’t sleep all that much. Sometimes she gets up in the night and she likes to be alone. You go out there now and she’ll probably just stonewall you further. She’ll probably start digging a moat around herself.”

Helena settled back against the couch, her eyes worriedly watching the other woman.

“Why doesn’t she sleep that much anymore? She appeared tired early.”

Pete was noticeably quiet, a look of worry flashed across his face before he yawned and started to rub his forehead.

“She’s working through some stuff.”

“Alone?”

“Huh?”

“She’s working through whatever her stuff is alone? Because I can tell you from experience that is a horrible idea.”

Pete laughed lightly at. “No kidding.”

“Then I should go talk to her?”

Pete shook his head back and forth and then reached up to rub his temples. “She just needs time right now. Artie says we need to give her space. In a way actually, Myka hasn’t gotten to be alone for a long time, not the way she likes.”

Helena scowled as she looked out the window. “Again you speak in riddles.”

“Yah, well it’s three o’clock in the morning, not my prime game time. I promise I’ll tell Artie we all need to sit in a circle holding hands while we all sing kumbaya when we get back.” 

She gave one last desperate look out the window before turning to face him.

“I have no desire to hold your hand.”

“I don’t know if I can believe you when you are sitting in bed with me right now, alone in this room.”

She jumped up out of the bed in a quick flash. Pete’s chuckle vibrated through his pillow as he buried his head into it and closed his eyes. 

“Goodnight, H.G.”

“Goodnight,” she whispered back.

Before retreating back to her bed she paused at the doorway, her hand hovering just over the handle. She stood there like that for about ten seconds before she turned to go back bed.

It was possible the Dust-Witch was right, she was ill equipped for the match in front of her.


	6. Chapter 6

>   
>  "Not words in books or words you say but real thoughts, real actions, quick thought, quick action, win the day."  
> 

Sitting down low in the chair in front of their room, Pete slipped his sunglasses on and rubbed the creased skin of his forehead in what was an attempt at a soothing manner but was more of scrubbing action. He wished scrubbing his brain were an option.

The early morning sun was bright, it was already the beginnings of a nice day and yet his head pounded, his stomach still churned and if he hadn’t known any better he would have described his current predicament as being hung-over. Indeed most of yesterday was a blur. He did not like this familiar feeling. He was even wearier of what the day’s events could bring. There was a bad vibe that hummed so loudly in him, his bones felt like they were shaking.

“Morning,” Helena said.

Making an effort, he turned his head slightly to the left to nod at her in recognition. 

“I picked up some muffins from down the road,” she continued as she held up a small paper bag. “And coffee.”

She set the tray of coffee down on the small table beside him.

“Coffee is good,” he murmured as he reached for one. 

“Not that one,” she said. “It’s my tea. Any of the other two.”

“Thanks,” he said after picking one of the other ones up and taking a long sip.

“Muffin?” she asked as she opened the bag. “I got chocolate chip-“

“You wouldn’t happen to have a bran muffin in there or a fruit one?”

Helena’s eyes opened wide.

“Uh, I figured you’d want the chocolate one. There’s a low fat cranberry but I got that for Myka.”

“Right,” he said. “Of course. Don’t worry about it. Myka needs to eat something when she finishes having a shower.”

“You still not feeling well?”

“No, but it’s not just from the food yesterday. I feel…” he paused. “I don’t feel right. I feel like I’ve been knocked down a peg or few and I can’t tell what this bad feeling in me is about.”

“A vibe?”

“Yes but not just that.”

Helena leaned against the wall and picked her tea up. 

“Would you think badly of me if I expressed my desire not to go back to that carnival, even though we are no closer to finding the missing people?”

“No,” Pete replied. “I’d be right there with you in the car on the way back home if I didn’t have this horrible sense of duty.”

Helena sipped her tea. 

“Ah, yes, one’s duty. I’m afraid I have to admit your sense of honor is much stronger than mine.”

Pete snorted.

“Well no need to whip it out and compare, but you did save the world once with that whole self-sacrifice thing.”

“It only seemed fair after trying to destroy it,” she murmured darkly.

“Hey, now, in a fucked up way you had a sense of honor about that too.”

She turned and faced him with an incredulous look.

“Most villains are able to justify their means. They don’t think they’re the bad guy.”

“And usually it’s the good guys who struggle with thinking they’re bad,” he concurred.

Helena opened the lid on her drink and discarded the tea bag.

“It surprises me that you think so highly of me. It’s odd…I don’t even remember sacrificing myself for the warehouse. I don’t know how I can take credit for it.”

“I think the fact that Artie doesn’t want to drop you in the deepest hole in the earth now, is enough to make you realize even if you don’t remember it, you did good.”

“Hmmm,” Helena murmured. “Still, my point stands that despite my misgivings about your mind set at times, it is quite honorable the sense of duty you have had through-out your whole life.”

He took another gulp of his coffee.

“Awww, H.G.,” he said. “Look at us bonding again.”

“Think of it as penance for my behavior yesterday.”

“Well, think of the fact that I didn’t make one ‘duty’ poo joke as my apology too for yesterday.”

His brow furrowed.

“I guess I kind of did there now, so it’s really half an apology.”

“I’ll accept the other half of the apology if you can talk Myka into abandoning this quest and we go home.”

He frowned. “You really don’t want to go back there do you?”

“Do you?”

The coffee that he had drunk sloshed uncomfortably in his stomach.

“That place,” Helena continued when he hadn’t responded. “It did things to us. I don’t know how we’re supposed to protect ourselves.”

“I know,” he whispered.

Setting his coffee down he stared off into the distance where he could just make out the top of the carnival’s Ferris wheel.

“Please don’t let me eat anything there. And if you have to, you and Myka can put me on one of those kid’s leashes. But not in kinky way.”

A small laugh escaped her.

“I guess that could be one solution for your distracted nature.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?” she said tightly.

“I think you should remember to do those breathing exercises I know Abigail has been teaching you. They’re supposed to help with the panic.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied as she made an effort not to look at him.

“We both need to keep an eye on Myka,” he added after a beat. “I don’t know what is up with her in there and I don’t like that Mr. Dark clearly has a thing for her.”

“Agreed,” Helena replied in a strong tone.

“Her being withdrawn, that’s not new. That started even before you came back. It’s not just you.”

“How comforting,” she said sarcastically, a frown settling on her face.

“But in there…” he paused. “She was…mean.”

“She was annoyed,” Helena added. “She was filled with a strange tension and…I don’t know.”

“Does it scare you?”

“Yes,” Helena breathed.

“It must be hard for you. But it’s a little funny in that not so funny kind of way but she’s kind of like the Myka when we first met.”

“Really?”

“A little I suppose.”

“I’m I supposed to glean from that bit of information that you have had a positive effect on her this whole time.”

“Oh yah,” he said as he felt the coffee giving him a burst of energy to flash a cocky smile. “I even have proof for that. A little while ago at Christmas time, I accidentally touched-“

“Not surprised,” she said dryly.

“Un huh, well more like this artifact of a brush from this old story fell on me and suddenly I was wiped away from existence. I was still alive but no one knew who I was, I hadn’t technically been born, I hadn’t met Myka and come to the Warehouse. And so Myka was still in D.C. and oh, she was such a tight ass when I found her, trying to get her to help me was a struggle.”

“You’re smiling,” Helena remarked.

“I guess I am. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it’s nice to know how important you are to the people you care about.”

He paused as he swirled his coffee around in his cup.

“In that timeline, Myka had arrested Artie and he was stuck serving jail time, that for sure is hilarious looking back.”

Helena flashed an amused smile.

“Indeed.”

“And I found myself mentioning you a lot off hand, but Myka had no idea. She was like ‘Why do you keep mentioning him?’ Because she didn’t know H.G. Wells was really a woman and when I tried to explain she told me to stop talking and punched me in the shoulder.”

Helena laughed lightly.

“I bet that had felt familiar.”

“It did. But I was never happier to get back to where everything was the way it should be.”

“Yes, I would imagine so.”

For a moment they were silent as they mentally prepared for the day’s events.

“I am not unaware of Myka’s many layers, good or bad, nor she of mine,” Helena said quietly, breaking the silence. “I am concerned for the way that carnival plays and manipulates parts of us to its advantage.”

“Any idea on how to fight it?”

She picked at her paper cup.

“Neutralize the artifact.”

“Of course.”

“Or runaway,” she added.

With a sense of determination he gulped down the rest of his coffee.

“So only really one option then.”

She nodded. He felt no better about the day.

 

The car ride to the carnival was quiet. Both Pete and Helena had avoided voicing their concerns to Myka. Pete was paying attention to the roads but they weren’t very busy, he imagined if the carnival was working its pull already, most people were planning on spending the day there. 

At every stop his eyes would glance at Myka in the rearview mirror. He tried to school the look of worry on his face every time but knew he wasn’t pulling it off. His partner was listless. Gone was the tension that had built at the carnival but she was back to being unreceptive Myka. She had barely spoken besides a thank you to Helena for the coffee and muffin. In the back seat she looked so small wrapped up in her jacket. If she noticed his concerned glances she didn’t acknowledge them, her dull eyes roamed the passing streets through the window.

He was going to have to give Artie a call soon. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

The whirring of the Farnsworth pierced the silence.

Helena answered.

“Hello, Claudia.”

Pete pulled the car over on the side of the road. Helena held the Farnsworth up between them and Myka shifted forward into the middle.

“Wow, you all look like happy campers.”

No one replied to Claudia’s remark.

“Okay, I get it, motel life can be rough. Were there bed bugs?” she tried for a joking tone but none of them were in the mood.

Claudia coughed awkwardly.

“All right then. Business it is.”

“What do you have for us?” he asked.

“First off, my research into Ray Bradbury and any related artifacts was pretty limited. Besides an old craved jack-o-lantern that is supposedly from what may or may not have been the real Halloween Tree, nothing turned up. And we have that jacked pumpkin here in the warehouse. It caused some issues back in the eighties. Something to do with sudden haunted vegetation growth that almost took over the whole mid-east one October.”

“Huh,” Pete said.

Claudia rolled her eyes. “You know what I’m talking about, right, Myka?”

“Yes,” Myka replied with a stiff nod.

“Thank you.”

“But nothing else then?” Helena jumped in.

“Nope, but when he passed away about two years ago, a lot of his stuff has slowly been sold off at auctions. And as we all know auctions can be an artifact goldmine. Actually, why don’t any of us ever work as auctioneers, I mean the secret service thing doesn’t always make sense and-“

“What a wonderful thought, perhaps you should take that up with Artie next time you see him?” Helena interjected.

Claudia closed her mouth for a fraction of a second before speaking again.

“You are patronizing me.”

“I am not.”

“She was just being British, Claud. Sometimes it’s hard to tell,” Pete tried to placate.

“Sometimes British and patronizing are the same thing,” Claudia said as she narrowed her eyes at them.

“You know I think highly of your ideas, Claudia, but perhaps we could focus on the task at hand, that is all I mean to say,” Helena tried to clear up.

“Fine,” Claudia huffed. “My point is I have a few databases and ebay listings to go through to see if anything might be the artifact we are after. And by few, I mean a vast many, for the internet is-”

“Got it, Claudia,” Myka interjected. “Keep up the good work.”

“Thanks, Myka.”

“Is Artie around?” Pete asked.

“Nope. He and Steve had to leave last night for a ping in New York. I’ll tell them to bring you back some authentic pizza, Pete.”

“Please don’t talk about food to me right now,” he replied. 

“Pete is currently squeamish about food, how bad is this artifact?”

“Bad,” Helena responded.

“Well, I have some good news and some bad news to add to everything.”

“Bad news first,” he said.

“Bad news, there were two more disappearances yesterday.”

“You’re kidding?” Myka spoke up in disbelief.

“Nope,” Claudia said as she started to type at a computer just off screen. “A Stacey and Brandon Keystone, ages forty-four and forty-three.”

“A couple?” Helena asked.

“No, a brother and sister. Their mother reported that they never came back from the carnival yesterday, of course it hasn’t been twenty four hours but she called into the police station about it anyways.”

“They both still live at home?” Pete guffawed.

“Uh, economy is hard dude, don’t be an ass.”

“Fine, fine.”

“I’m sending you their profile pictures to your phones right now.”

“Should we try the Police Chief again?” Helena asked, as she glanced at him and Myka.

“I already did,” Claudia jumped in. “He isn’t in the precinct today. The officer I spoke to seemed pretty hassled and said he wasn’t even able to get a hold of the Chief yet.”

“Like he’d be any help anyways,” Pete mumbled.

“Claud,” Myka’s quiet voice spoke up. Pete turned to look at her. She was frowning at something on her phone. “Are these the most recent pictures of Stacey and Brandon?”

“Yes, they updated their social media religiously.”

“What is it, Myka?” Pete asked.

“I think I know them. I think we all saw them yesterday,” she replied without looking up from her phone.

“When?” Helena asked perplexed.

Myka looked up at them with a grave expression. “When Pete was trying to win King of the carnival.”

“Pete was trying to do what now?” Claudia’s voice rang through the car.

“Only,” Myka paused as she flipped her phone’s screen towards them. “They were younger. There was a teenaged brother and sister who were in the contest with you as well, Pete. The one girl had dark long black hair and the boy was wearing a baseball cap with some kind of sports logo on it.”

Pete glanced at the screen and squinted his eyes at the two pictures.

“I don’t really recognize them.”

“That’s because you were distracted at the time,” Helena added. She leaned forward towards Myka’s phone. “I remember the teenaged girl and based on Stacey’s photo here, she could have been a younger version.”

“I agree,” Myka said. “Plus older Brandon is wearing a hat in his profile picture as well and I remember that that is the same logo on the kid’s hat I saw yesterday.” 

“Jeez, there’s that photographic memory working over time,” Pete said.

“I remember in perfect detail how you fell on your ass just before the contest.”

He smiled at her when he recognized the playful teasing glint her eye. He was happy to see it, even if he was being made the fool. 

“Just giving you happy memories for a rainy day, partner.”

A tired smile stretched across her face but he was pleased to see it was kind.

“But how is this possible?” Helena said worriedly. “We tried neutralizing the Merry-Go-Round and nothing happened.”

“Yes, that’s true, but you did say you had heard the ride working earlier in the day, the same day Stacey and Brandon Keystone supposedly disappeared and their younger doubles showed up,” Myka said.

“I could have been mistaken in hearing the music.”

“I don’t think you were and I think you know you did. Don’t doubt it,” Myka said softly.

Helena’s worried expression decreased as she nodded at Myka.

“Then how is it doing this?”

“Maybe it’s a bifurcated artifact,” Claudia interjected. 

“I hate those,” Pete exclaimed. “They’re the worst.”

“Tell me about it,” Claudia agreed. “Poe’s pen and journal, ugh.”

“The bookends that made Myka and I switch bodies,” he added with a groan.

“Please, please don’t remind me,” Myka moaned from the back seat.

“I know, we almost exploded into bits when it progressed and we were sharing one body,” Pete intoned.

“No, I mean the fact that I was you and you were me. I still have nightmares.”

“Hey!” he said as he turned his head around to face her better. “I’m the one that got you in with Kurt Smoller remember.”

Myka raised an eyebrow. “Maybe that says more about you than it does about me.”

He raised his finger up at her and started to chuckle in a challenging way. “Oh, you, you…”

Myka’s timid smile grew twice its size as she leaned back against her seat with a shrug.

Helena cleared her throat and pulled the Farnsworth closer towards her.

“No doubt we can all agree how important it is that Myka and Pete are back in their respective bodies,” she paused as she noted the raised, knowing eyebrows Claudia was shooting her way. Clearing her throat again, she continued, “But for the issue at hand, if the Merry-Go-Round is a bifurcated artifact, my best bet would be that whoever is operating it randomly, has the other half on them.”

“Survey says,” Pete roll-called like a game show host. “Mr. Dark. Ding, ding, ding.”

“If the Bad Guy talks like the Bad Guy, walks like the Bad Guy, dresses like the Bad guy and literally has a name that only puts more emphasis on his sketchy demeanor. I think we got our guy,” Claudia added. “I have yet to find a hit on a Jim Williams matching your description. It’s a common name, and surprisingly the records for traveling carnivals are sparse. Who would think circus freaks didn’t like paper trails?”

“It might not be him,” Myka spoke up. “Lots of people are working at the carnival.”

Pete pulled the Farnsworth closer to his face. “Mr. Dark has a crush on Myka. He’s got that whole dark, mysterious, rebel thing going on. You know how Myka-”

Myka’s hand swatted the back of his head. 

“Hey! Watch the hair.”

“Oh…” Claudia said in surprise.

“It’s not that, I mean yes, he is a fan of the book and the author but anyone there could be manipulating even him into working the carnival in their interest. It wouldn’t be good to narrow down our list of perpetrators just to one guy without better evidence,” Myka tried to explain.

“Okay, okay,” Pete complied. “Keep our eyes open for all suspects.”

“So what is the good news then?” Helena asked a little too loudly. 

Pete glanced at her not so subtle attempt to change the subject matter.

“Good news is one of our missing people was found last night.”

“Who?” Pete asked.

“Bill Cornwell, the elderly man from the retirement home. Turns out he did just wander away from the place somehow. The cops found him last night at the library.”

“How is that possible?”

“He has dementia, Pete. Not really sure where he is all the time.”

“No, I mean the fact that he was able to escape. That is horrible. Something could have happened to him.”

“Well the retirement home says they’re under staffed, the person on the shift that Bill was able to escape during, never showed up and called in to quit.”

“Another missing person?” Helena asked.

“Nope, he’s still around and the guy’s twitter said he quit so he could take advantage of the ‘Rad carnival’, like, who even says the word ‘rad’ anymore?”

“Idiot,” Myka supplied.

“Yah, not cool on any level, the guy’s actions and use of words,” Claudia added.

“It looks like we caught a bit of luck then, at least one man is safe,” Helena said.

“Still need to find Melissa, Jacob and now Brandon and Stacey,” Pete clarified.

“Yes, and I hope you do. They’re not the first to go missing in the aftermath of this carnival’s travels. And that young couple I said that got caught for fraud, turns out a DNA test shows they match the older couple whose social security numbers and credit cards they were using. The Police are stumped but with what we know, I’d say that Merry-Go-Round is working its mojo somehow.”

“Myka, do you remember anything else about the Merry-Go-Round in the book?” Pete asked.

“No, it just does it’s thing on it’s own.”

They were all silent for a moment; each of them caught up in the harsh reality of how difficult this mission was turning out. Pete clenched his jaw at the worried thoughts that were running through his head.

“Myka is the only one who has read the book, but I was doing some reading of my own. I thought it was strange that everyone else seems so drawn to the carnival, while Helena openly expressed concern.”

“What do you mean, Claud?” he asked.

“In the book, some people can’t see past their desires or what they want and they are immediately goners. But some, like the character of Will and his father, they have their suspicions about the carnival and it tries to hurt them.”

“That’s correct,” Myka added.

“Basically, not everyone is so easy to pull the wool over and since you guys are used to this stuff, you have that going for you, but obviously you aren’t unaffected when you are there, in the book, the carnival and Mr. Dark try to work harder to trap those who fight it. I dunno if it’s ‘cause their souls are more complicated or what. But basically, I think you guys walking back in there, you’re going to have a target on your backs.”

“No kidding,” Pete said darkly.

“I know Artie is away, but I’m ordering you guys to check in with me every two hours and I think you need to take breaks, you need to not stay at the carnival all day, it-“

“It does things to us,” Helena finished for her. 

“And short of renting a plane, learning how to fly said plane and then crop dusting the whole place with all the neutralizing goo I’ve got, you’ve got to go back in and find whatever is making these people lose themselves.”

Neither of them looked thrilled but they all stayed quiet. It was a heavy silence. 

“You’ve got this,” Claudia confidently intoned.

“We do,” Pete replied. “But know the plane dropping goo plan is plan B so start taking those lessons.”

Claudia raised her hand to her forehead and saluted them.

“Aye, aye capey.”

“You sound like a pirate,” Helena said amused.

“I’ll get my boating license while I’m at it too.”

Helena laughed lightly at her. 

“You guys stick together,” Claudia added with a stern look.

“Yes ma’am,” Pete said. “Kirk out,” he followed with as he shut the Farnsworth off.

Starting the car back up, the engine covered the angry grumble of his stomach. He still didn’t feel great but Claudia was good at reminding them what they needed to do no matter what. 

It was their duty. 

His duty.

Duty.

“What are you laughing at?” Helena asked beside him.

“Nothing,” he replied with a smirk and pulled the car out.

 

The three of them stood just outside of the carnival, their eyes wearily locking on the Mr. Electro sign. They had yet to make a move forward.

“Mr. Electro part of the book too? We going to meet him,” Pete asked.

“Mr. Dark’s number two man has an unfortunate accident with the Merry-Go-Round and is then known as Mr. Electro due to a certain creepy stage act. It’s not pretty. So I don’t know actually,” Myka replied.

“Sounds morbid.”

“It is. To be fair though, it could be our Mr. Dark’s homage to Ray Bradbury, Bradbury was inspired by his own Mr. Electro when he was a young boy at a carnival.”

“I don’t know if I want to know the extent of what happened to him as a boy at a carnival that would inspire such a book.”

“Relax, Pete,” Myka said. “Bradbury just had an amazing imagination. He was inspired by lots of things as a child and,” she paused, her eyes locked on Helena. “Lots of people.”

Helena felt her gaze and turned to look at her.

“What?” Helena asked.

“Bradbury was a H.G. Wells fan,” Myka said with a charitable smile.

“Really?” Helena gasped.

“Yes, he even wrote a famous short story about time travel called ‘A Sound of Thunder.’”

Helena couldn’t hide the awe on her face. “What happens in it?”

“Why couldn’t we be dealing with his work on that? Because I mean time travel is in our wheelhouse,” Pete murmured to himself.

Myka chuckled at him. “I don’t think you are aware of what you are asking, Pete.”

“Probably not.”

Myka faced Helena again with a sly nod. “The idea of the story is that far in the future, someone has made a successful time machine that transports body and mind, and a group of people decide to use it to go back to the dinosaur age.”

“Umm, that sounds awesome,” Pete said.

“Why that particular time period?” Helena asked with interest.

“Well, the story deals with a certain school of thought in regards to time travel, that they can’t change anything in the past that will have an unknown effect on the present day. So the idea is if they go back to the dinosaurs, they can hunt a T-Rex just before it’s going to die anyways and therefore nothing will be affected in an unknown way, as-“

“The Tyrannosaurus Rex dies out anyways in history,” Helena added with enthusiasm. “Brillant.”

“Exactly, but of course one guy messes up.”

“Obviously,” Pete said as he rolled his eyes.

“He goes off track and when they get back to the present, he starts to notice that little things are different, the way words are spelt, who wins elections. When he looks at the boots he wore on his time adventure, he notices a dead butterfly stuck to the bottom.”

“Oh my god,” Pete blurted out as he jumped on the spot. “The Butterfly effect. The idea that if you even kill a butterfly in the past, stuff will get messed up in the timeline. I know that! I didn’t know this guy wrote that. Cool.”

Though her eyes blinked wearily, Myka’s common weak smile only grew generous at his words.

“Yeah.”

“I must admit I only ever thought of how to change and explore events with Time Travel, never really the consequences, but then I wasn’t really in the proper state of mind for…” she trailed off, her eyes becoming unfocused.

“Time travel has led to many schools of thought but he was inspired by your work. Lots of people have been.”

When Pete noticed Helena hadn’t completely come back to herself, he stepped forward and added, “She’s giving you a compliment, H.G.”

Helena blinked twice more before her eyes focused and she turned and smiled coyly at Myka. “Thank you.”

“You should read the story sometime,” Myka added with a shrug. Pete could see she was trying to crumble back into herself as she turned her head away and glanced off into the distance away from Helena.

And for once Pete found himself privy to a different kind of smile on Helena’s face; it was less cocky, and more thankful. The tips of her stretched lips were soft and didn’t dig into her cheeks but floated just on top of her skin. Pete could admit that Helena’s cockiness and ego had a lot to back it up but it didn’t mean it didn’t bug him at times. Staring at her as he saw it sink in the effect her ideas had had through the years, he knew the moment was due. He couldn’t imagine what it was like never getting credit for the work one did, especially on such a cultural level.

If anyone tried to say he wasn’t the best at eating cookies and comic book trivia, he’d be pissed. Apples to oranges, but he got it.

“All right,” Pete said after giving Helena a moment to collect herself. “This guy was super imaginative and no doubt the artifact is a powerful one, but we’ve also got one of the greatest authors of all time, and Myka super encyclopedia and Pete the best shot in-“

“I’m the best shot between us,” Myka threw in.

He shot her a dirty look as she stuck her tongue in her cheek. The faltering smile that he was becoming used to from her appeared to flutter a beat stronger under his playfully insulted glare and it’s tune stood out desperately across her pale skin. It was a welcomed sight.

“You couldn’t let me have that one?”

“Nope.” Her tongue clicked against her teeth.

“Fine. Myka the super encyclopedia and best shot in this here area-“

“Why does she get two things? I’m also an inventor.”

He leveled his glared at Helena.

“I am not appreciating the level of sass I’m getting.”

“Well it’s only fair,” Helena mock pouted, her eyes were downcast, but the tell-tale signs of her cocky smirk was engraving itself in her alabaster skin by the second.

“Okay, well what am I suppose to be? H.G., great author and inventor. Myka, encyclopedia and best shot. Pete…” he faltered, genuinely thrown off.

Myka and Helena oddly shared a look.

“And Pete,” Myka said. “The best…”

“The best Pete around,” Helena finished with a shrug.

Pete threw his head back with a sigh. “This is a work in progress I can tell. I’m not going to pretend this doesn’t wound me.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Myka said with a half hearted eye roll.

“There is other work to be in progress with,” Helena said.

“Exactly my point, let’s put our heads together, where do you think we should start?”

“I think we need to narrow down Mr. Dark’s activities,” Helena answered.

“Yes,” Myka agreed. “But until we find him, I would like to still follow Melissa’s activities. We should go and visit the Freak exhibit, maybe we can pick up on something from this carnival’s other employees.”

“Good idea, let’s go intimidate the freaks.” Pete raised his own eyebrows after he spoke. “Wait, should we be saying the word ‘freaks’, is that PC?”

“I don’t know,” Myka said. “But let’s go see how they feel about it.”

Pete raised his hands up in front of the women.

“Okay, before we go in there, remember, we all care and respect each other underneath all our crap, so please remember that, if I do something stupid in there.”

Myka crossed her arms and squinted at him. “And how is that different than any other day?”

“Aw come on, Mykes, we’re not even in the carnival yet, no excuse for that jab.”

Myka stuck her tongue out at him.

“I was going to say, what do you mean ‘if’?” Helena said, honestly coming across perplexed.

“Kumbaya, H.G., kumbaya,” he responded as he pointed his finger at her.

And with that he found himself walking backwards into the carnival’s entrance, hoping that keeping his eyes on his friends and recalling the playful teasing, he could keep his wits about him.

 

It had appeared all so subtle the day before, the building temptations, from the blinding, twinkling lights of every awaiting game of skill, the yells of playful fright and fun on the rides that rose up in the air, and the aroma of every kind of fried and sweet food settling around him. It had been like a tempting kaleidoscope that he had wanted to flip as much as possible to see all the versions of color and the flare that the carnival could offer. 

Today there was nothing alluring about, it was as though the roses had been ripped up and all that was left was a stink of earthy decay. The lights made his head hurt; the yells from the rides had him on edge and the food, the food made his stomach do back flips that weren’t sticking the landing. But despite having the veil pulled back, he could still feel it somewhere deep inside him, an anticipation, a hankering for what he didn’t know. Something could trap him at any minute. It filled him with dread.

He could feel Helena right behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and frowned at what he saw. Her fingers fluttered in the air, like perhaps she was about to grab onto the back of his shirt. Her chest caved in and then furiously pushed itself out. She was breathing like the air was slowly becoming water. When she noticed he was watching her, she gave him a tentative smile.

“It’s like walking into the lion’s den,” she offered up.

“I’m I your shield?” he asked.

Her hands immediately fell to her side and she stepped back a pace. “There were a lot of people and I didn’t want to lose sight of you,” she mumbled back defensively.

“Okay,” he said, making sure that his tone held no doubt in believing her. 

They couldn’t stop being on good terms this early in the game. Myka was a few feet behind Helena and he already didn’t like the distance. She was watching the crowd, like a statue on display, a look of what Pete guessed was concern on her face, but in a flash, she blinked and the wall went back up and she shifted her eyes towards him.

He didn’t know what he was seeing in them.

“Let’s all walk in a row, shall we,” Pete said. “Keep the same pace.”

Helena and Myka fell into step with him wordlessly.

With their refusal to move their line of three when walking through the crowd, it took them longer than it should have to reach the large black tent that displayed a sign for ‘The Amazing Freaks’.

“Really went all out with that title,” Pete said under his breath.

There was already a long line to get in. The three of them walked over to the entrance. 

“Hey, you got to get in line with everybody else, buddy,” a young man in a rock band tank top directed at Pete. The guy’s body was already taut with aggressive energy.

Pete pulled out his badge and flashed it at the guy. “Secret Service business.”

“Sure, I can go buy one of those fake badges at the trinket stalls too.” 

“It’s not fake.”

The guy snorted. “Yah, right.”

“Hey!” a familiar voice rang out.

With regret Pete turned towards the voice. The short man who had accosted him yesterday stood just inside the entrance of the tent smoking a cigar.

“Keep the peace,” he yelled at tank top guy. “And you three,” he said as he pointed at them. “Get in here.”

“Look, guys, it’s my best friend from yesterday,” Pete said sarcastically.

“You make friends far too easily,” Myka muttered as she moved first towards the entrance.

The short man greeted them. “Mr. Dark said you’d be back today.”

“Did he?” Helena questioned, her voice taking on a certain tone, a tone Pete liked to refer to as her snake voice. It was pure predator chic. 

“No doubt about it. I’m supposed to give you free reign. You here to see the freaks?”

“The Amazing Freaks,” Helena said, putting a sarcastic emphasis on the second word. She was practically hissing at the guy and he wasn’t getting it.

Pete shivered all the same. He was thankful he wasn’t on the receiving end of it for once.

“Yes, well, come on through, free of charge. I’ll make sure antsy tank top guy waits until you are done.” And with that, he disappeared back out the entrance.

“He was kind of nicer today,” Pete said.

“Does nicer mean trap?” Helena asked, her voice rising to its normal frequency.

“Oh, yah, totally, no doubt,” he replied as he turned to look at her. “And I’m sure our friend has gone to pass on to Mr. Dark just how suspicious you were about it all. We’re in for it, for sure.”

“I have no idea what you are referring to.”

“You were giving him your snake eyes, and that carnivorous sneer.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s a trademark of yours.”

“Again, pardon?”

“Oh, come on,” he sputtered and turned around as he spoke next, “Myka, back me up…” His words faltered as his stomach dropped to his knees, Myka was not with them.

“Bollocks,” Helena swore as she realized as well.

“How-“

“It’s you, and you being bloody distracting,” Helena hissed. “I would never be this interested in anything you have to say. It’s just not possible.”

Helena’s gaze drifted towards where the entrance was, the curtain was still drawn.

“She couldn’t have slipped out that way again.”

Pete ran forward in the darkness of the tent; black curtains hung around them forming a twisting corridor.

He took a sharp corner after another and ended up colliding right into a solid back. His hands reached out and wrapped around a familiar form.

“Myka!”

He spun her around, his hands locking on the upper part of her arms. He may have squeezed harder than was necessary in his desperation. His jerky actions had no affect on his partner; Myka hadn’t even flinched when they had collided. 

Green eyes sluggishly darted around the room, but never focused. 

“Myka!” he snapped again as he shook her.

“Hmmm,” she hummed.

She blinked slowly. 

“Pete,” she half-laughed. “What’s wrong?”

There was a dazed look still in her eyes despite the fact that she was acknowledging him. 

“What’s wrong?” he spat back at her. “You took off.”

“What? No.”

“Yes, you did.” Beyond his control, his fluctuating concern lingered in the twitching of his fingers around her arms. He couldn’t bring himself to let go just yet, not when the strange dopey smile strung itself across her face. 

“Oh, well.” She shrugged.

“Oh, well? How can you-“

“I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispered huskily. 

Helena rounded the corner at that moment but had the foresight to slow down. 

“What’s going on?”

Pete couldn’t look away from Myka. The twisted features on her face, the voice that kept fluctuating abnormally, he feared if he did she’d be sucked up into the black space around them and further lost.

“Do you want to know?” Myka leaned in and giggled. 

He swallowed dryly. The giggle was unlike any sound Myka had made before.

“Do you want to know the secret?”

“Pete,” Helena said. It sounded like a plea.

“What’s the…” he stumbled. “What’s the secret you want to tell me, Myka?”

The stupefied grin grew. The alien that was wearing her face was satisfied immensely and it made him sick.

“Nothing matters. Life in the end-“

He shook her back and forth.

“Myka! Stop this. Come back to us, please.”

A haze took over her glassy eyes, the milk of them supernaturally blending into the black of her pupils, like a hypnotic swirl.

“You’re all going to die,” she whispered again. “Death is coming. But he picks and he chooses and we both know he’s so very angry, Pete.”

He pulled back like he had been struck.

“He’s so very angry with you and what you did. He knows what you did. I know what you did,” she sing-songed in a high pitch.

“I don’t care,” he breathed as he leant back in. “You hear me, Myka, I don’t care what he thinks.”

“But the secret-“

“No.”

The chimes of her snickering giggle echoed painfully in the darkness.

“The secret is, he doesn’t exist at all,” she drawled. “Just a –“ She suddenly seized in his arms and stopped talking.

“I believe that is enough of that,” Helena spoke up from just behind her.

Myka gasped and crumpled forward into his chest, her eyes squeezing shut in what he hoped wasn’t pain.

“What did you do?” he yelled at Helena who was distractedly fiddling with something in her hands. It was her tesla gun.

“Claudia and I were modifying my tesla gun the other day, we didn’t get a chance to finish putting it back correctly, it still works but see this,” she paused as she held it up in the air and pointed to a stray piece of coil that stuck out from it’s frame. “When the gun is charging, if you touch it, you’ll get a little bit of a shock. I have to fix it.”

“You just shocked Myka,” he exclaimed in disbelief. Myka shifted against his chest.

“You didn’t seem to be handling the situation,” she replied darkly. “The situation needed to be handled.”

“Myka is not a situation.”

Helena looked down at her gun and turned it off. “That was not Myka.”

“Is that what you told yourself? Did it make it easier to do that? What it must be like to be you and make the story up as you go,” he spat. He bent his chin down and watched as Myka slowly opened her eyes and then closed them again. “Hey, Mykes, you okay?”

“There was nothing easy about that. And if that’s what you truly think, then we have no hope at all in getting through this carnival in one piece.”

His shoulders slumped. “Fine, but you…you can’t shock people randomly, you don’t know, know-“

“Know what?” she spat back, her eyes narrowing into furious slits. “Please enlighten me again, on all the things I’m supposed to know but somehow cannot know all the same.”

Myka groaned before he could respond and both their attention was drawn back to her, the fight going out of them. Two slightly confused eyes opened. He was relieved to see they were their normal clear green.

“Pete?” she asked quietly.

“Yah?”

“Why are you cradling me?”

“Uh, I was feeling needy?”

“Huh?” She pulled out of his arms and stumbled. Helena reached out and grabbed her.

“Easy, Myka,” Helena said.

Whatever had taken over her, plus the added shock of literal electricity had left Myka a little off her game, for she didn’t jerk awkwardly away from the other woman.

“Hel…” she began and trailed off. “I need to sit down.”

Helena immediately shifted her body as she helped Myka settle down on the ground. Myka bent her head forward and Helena rubbed her shoulder gently and then let her hand linger on her neck.

“How do you feel?” she asked quietly.

The seconds stretched before them, as Myka remained silent.

“Myka?” Pete asked as he crouched down on his knees, becoming level with the other two women.

“What happened?” Her voice was scratchy like she hadn’t been the one to use it in a while.

“You don’t remember?”

“I just remember we were coming into the exhibit and I started walking forward and then I was alone and…”

“And?”

“And I felt strange and…and I don’t recall.”

Pete and Helena shared a worried look before he spoke next, “You kind of zoned out on us, Myka.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Did you touch anything?”

His question did cause her to finally raise her head. 

“Yah, Pete, I just couldn’t help myself and immediately swathed my entire body in all this black fabric around us.”

Rocking back on his heels, he used the momentum to stand back up. 

“Sarcasm. Just a hint. That’s more like it.” He flashed a tight smile at them both.

“Myka,” Helena began. She hadn’t let go of the other woman. “How do you feel now though?”

And Pete knew exactly when Myka had acquired all her senses back. It was the second she realized how close Helena was, for her back tensed, her head shifted away and her eyes blinked steadily ahead.

“Myka-“

Myka stood up quickly and turned her body away from Helena. The look of hurt that flashed across Helena’s face was too much for Pete and he glanced away.

“Myka,” she whispered desperately.

Myka rolled her shoulders and refrained from making eye contact with her. 

“How-“ Helena began again only to be interrupted.

“I don’t know how I feel,” Myka all but snapped. “Lots of weird stuff is going to keep happening until we find this artifact, there’s no point in dwelling on it.”

Helena flinched. Pete was starting to feel sick to his stomach again.

“Everyone breath,” he lightly commanded. Two angry sets of eyes concentrated on him. “Weird stuff. We all get it. Let’s get through this exhibit, ask some questions, look around while no one wanders off and then we all go and take a break back at the motel. Okay?”

Two heads silently nodded at him. It was the best communication he could hope for.

They all rounded the next corner and in front of them was a red curtain.

“I know you were joking,” he found himself saying as he reached into his pocket for his purple gloves. He snapped them on and nodded at Myka. “But I’m not taking any chances.”

He pulled the curtain back and held it open for them. Further into the lion’s den they went.

 

Only one so-called freak greeted them. The circular room was all but empty except for the lone man who stood on a pedestal in the center. Stood was a loose description. The thin-limbed man was holding a peculiar position on the pedestal. His body was twisted at every odd angle. One flat palm was holding him up right, as his legs wrapped around his neck and his other arm was caught somewhere in the mix.

His eyes strained up towards them, it was the only hint at the amount of exertion his act was taking.

“Oh, good, someone finally showed up, so I’m not just doing this for my own amusement. What was the backlog?”

“Uh…” Pete stammered. “We were just taking in all the lovely décor on the way in.”

The man snorted.

“Well, I guess you’re finally here, so welcome.” He stretched one of his legs out at an odd angle. “Any preference on what position you’d like to see?”

“No offense, but I don’t normally care to know what position a guy likes,” Pete said.

The man rolled his eyes. “So he’s the comedian of the group then? How unfortunate.”

“You have no idea,” Helena replied as her eyes followed the movements he began to twist his body in.

“You the human pretzel, I take it?” Pete asked.

“Look at the sign below, it says Mr. Elastic Man,” the man answered dryly.

Pete glanced at the sign on the pedestal. “So it does.”

“Now that, that is cleared up, since you paid and all, what would you like to see me do with this old body of mine?”

“Actually,” Myka spoke up, her voice only shaking for a second before clearing up. “We didn’t pay at all. We’re investigating the disappearances.”

“Ah, I see.”

“You can stop the act if you’d like,” Helena said.

“Nope, I’m comfortable as is,” he remarked as he stuck his feet under his chin. “Ask away.”

“Do Melissa Freeze, Jacobs Roads, Brandon and Stacey Keystone sound like familiar names at all?” Pete inquired.

“I’m afraid not. Don’t really get on first name basis in here.”

Myka pulled out her phone and stepped forward. “Do any of these people look familiar?” she asked as she swiped through the photos.

“Stop,” the man replied. “The blonde. I think I recall her.”

“Melissa?” Myka pushed her phone closer to his face.

“I can’t say the name, but I recall her a few days ago. She came in with some of her girlfriends. I remember them because they couldn’t stop laughing.”

“Laughing?” Helena asked.

“They were a bit tipsy already, I could tell, but they were greatly amused by what positions I could do. The friends made a comment directed at the blonde girl about how they bet she wished her boyfriend could be more flexible. Not a very original joke, but I remember she strangely sobered up at that and stopped laughing. It was a bit awkward and then they went on their way.”

“You never saw her again?” Myka continued as she put her phone back in her jacket pocket.

“No, I’m mostly just stuck in here. You could try the others that you will see, but I warn you, they aren’t very talkative. It’s why I’m out here; I’m the greeter of sorts. Have I greeted you so?”

“How long have you worked for the carnival?” Helena said, by passing his sarcasm.

“This is my first year. I’ve worked other gigs like this before but never with this carnival.”

“Ever see anything strange?” she continued.

He snorted again. “I work in the freaks tent, kind of my job.”

“She means anything pertaining to the disappearances in the past?” Myka asked.

“I don’t really bond with my co-workers and I’m usually just in here. I also don’t stay on site with the camping trailers; I always like to find a motel to stay in. Surprisingly, after doing this all day, I like a big comfy bed and a bath.”

“Thank you for your help,” Pete said. “And hey, don’t get too twisted about the work hours.”

“Hardy-har-har,” he said and then turned to both Myka and Helena. “I truly feel for you, if you deal with that on a daily basis.”

“Hey! At least I keep my feet away from my mouth and other peoples, its not sanitary.”

“Buh-bye,” the man said as he waved his foot at them over his head.

 

“He was surprisingly normal,” Pete said as they made their way through the next corridor.

“Not really a freak you mean,” Myka added quietly.

“I mean he wasn’t giving me any creepy, sinister vibes, it was like he’s totally-“

“Unaltered by this place,” Helena finished. 

“It was nice.”

The three of them came to a larger room that had a row of stalls on either side of them with velvet rope strung out in front of each. Here the rest of the freaks lay, all lined up in a row for their viewing pleasure. It was a little underwhelming. They passed a woman with a long beard, a man sleeping on a bed of nails, a man covered in hair on almost his entire body, and a middle aged woman with strikingly bleached hair with extremely long fingernails that curled around in circles the size of hula hoops.

“I think Mr. Dark has gone too old-fashioned, people have honestly been shocked by this, in this day and age?” Pete said quietly.

“If the carnival is wrapping most people around its finger, I’m sure most customers are awed by this on some level,” Helena replied.

“Is it shocking you?”

A dead stare met his answer.

“Right, H.G. Wells, author, inventor, Warehouse agent, bronzed and reawakened a century later. You are totally bored, my bad.”

Myka was a few feet back speaking to the bearded lady, she was the only one who had made eye contact with them and had come forward when Myka showed Melissa’s picture. Pete kept his eyes on them the whole time.

The bearded lady shook her head sadly and Myka made her way to them.

“Anything?”

“Nope, she doesn’t remember, and gave the same answer as Elastic Man, about being in here most of the time and not knowing how the rest of the carnival operates.”

“All right, let’s make our way…” he began as he turned around, only to be met by one of the last stalls full on and he gasped, finally in shock. “Holy hell.”

“Pete,” Myka hissed and slapped him on the shoulder.

“Uh, sorry, sorry, not holy hell,” he mumbled, his eyes never moving from the freak before them. 

More like freaks. Plural.

Helena stepped up beside him in interest; her face fell in a look of sadness before she covered it up.

Before them were two twins. Conjoined female twins, unlike any Pete had seen before.

They appeared to share practically the same body with two heads. Two heads each with similar white long hair and blue eyes that avoided his eye contact at every turn. Even so, he could see the sadness in them. Despite the color of their hair, their skin was smooth.

He took a step back.

“That isn’t right,” Helena whispered.

“There have been cases before, it’s extremely rare but…” Myka trailed off.

“No, I mean to be put on display like this.”

“They seem sad,” Pete added.

“They’re being exploited. I would have hoped this type of thing would have stopped since my time.”

“Maybe, they’re cool with it, maybe they chose too and I was just being an ass and now they’re upset.”

Neither of his fellow agents replied. He wasn’t sure if he believed his words himself.

Pete took a step forward to the stall to speak to the twins, but before he could, one arm reached out and pulled on a rope and a black curtain fell down, blocking them from their view.

“She’s just shy,” a deep voice rumbled from further up.

They walked forward to where the voice called from and met an extremely large mountain of a man who was quite clearly too big for his stall, he was practically bursting out of it with his muscles. He had a nasty sort of looking face, like a gash was present instead of a mouth, and eyes that appraised everything with a manner of how easy it would be to squish it between his hands.

“Which one?” Pete asked.

The gash grew deeper as he smiled nastily.

“You were rude.”

“I wanted to apologize.”

“Too late.”

“I take it, you are the Strong Man?” Helena asked.

“Of sorts,” the strong man replied. “Would you like a demonstration?”

The spilt on his face twisted into a cocky sneer.

“I could juggle the three of you.”

“Instead of that, how about you answer us some questions?” Myka asked steadily.

“You’re the agents investigating, aren’t you? Mr. Dark told me about you.” His eager eyes settled only on Myka at his words.

“Told or warned?” Helena asked sharply.

He chuckled and it sounded like thunder rattling in his large chest.

“What can I do for you, if I am not to demonstrate my feats of strength?”

“You recognize the girl in the photo, Melissa Freeze?” Pete asked as Myka showed him the photo.

His calculating eyes lingered on the photo longer than it should have been necessary for him to gauge how long he could have squished her little head to mush. He was no longer the Strong Man when his eyes chose to falter and blink faster as he looked away from the photo and them.

“No, I can’t say I do.”

“You’re lying,” Helena said.

“No.” 

“Yes,” Helena challenged as she stepped in front of Myka and towards the velvet rope. “It seems all you are good for is taking up space, gone is the bravado when you attempt to lie. It was all over your face that you recognized her and now you are lying about it. Why?”

The muscles pulsed angrily, the veins pumping and straining against his skin.

“I think you may have poked the bear to soon,” Pete whispered to her.

“Answer her,” Myka spoke up.

“No,” he repeated, an anxious tremor threaded through the one word.

“Why do you lie?” Helena wasn’t backing down.

The muscles in his body no longer pulsed. They were bursting.

“Oh, God, he’s gonna Hulk Out,” Pete yelled as he pulled Helena back.

The Strong Man roared as he jumped up from his spot and pushed the two of them out of the way and took off running for the exit.

Both he and Helena fell to the ground, but Myka was already running after their fleeing suspect.

“Myka!” Pete groaned as he got back up on his feet. He started to go after them but then turned back to Helena.

“H.G., are you all right?”

She was tangled in the velvet rope but other wise appeared unharmed.

“I’m fine. Go after them. I will follow after I get out of this mess. Go!”

He faltered, unsure.

“You can’t leave Myka alone,” she stressed. “Go, damn it!”

And with that he was off, his feet taking him through the last black curtain and back into the sunlight. 

 

The sunlight was too bright after being in the dark tent for so long. Pete strained his eyes. Luckily, it was pretty obvious where the Strong Man had taken off to; he just had to follow the path of destruction. A cotton candy cart was toppled over and people stood around staring off into the distance in shock.

“Which way did he go?!” he blurted out.

A few people pointed just off to the right and Pete was on his way. Pete knew he was going in the right direction when he passed a few people who had been toppled over by the Strong Man. They were being helped to their feet by surrounding observers and Pete tried not to knock them down again as he weaved his way through.

For a second he thought he had caught sight of Myka’s head bobbing in and out of his eye line, when a giant stuffed teddy bear interrupted his pursuit, as it swung right out in front of him.

“Oppffh,” he mumbled into a mouth of fur. He stumbled briefly before catching himself.

“Hey! Watch it mister,” a high-pitched voice snarled.

The teddy bear shifted out of the way and revealed a small blonde girl holding him. She was glaring at him.

“Sorry, kid.” He moved to run around her but she swung the monstrosity of plush back in his face and he was unable to find space to maneuver around the flux of people.

“You got mud on him. I just won him and you ruined him.”

He thought she might cry but the softness of her face was overcome by the way her eyebrows were angrily dancing at him. The softness was gone all at once.

“Look, kid, I’m kind of in a rush. I’m sorry. It’s not bad, you can just wipe it off.” He moved again but the bear followed.

“I’m the Queen of the carnival, you can’t speak to me like that.”

He narrowed his eyes at her and found he vaguely recalled her from the day before when she had won the contest.

“I think the power went to your head. It’s a new day and you are no longer the Queen.”

She pouted and it was not in the least bit cute.

“If you don’t move out of the way right now,” he began, his voice staying light but his eyes were hard. “I will take your new friend here and rip his head right off and you won’t even be able to fix him then.”

She stared him down for a second.

“You’re mean.”

“Well you are a brat. Learn that accidents happen and accept people’s forgiveness and that people’s reigns can be short.”

She finally moved the bear away and he was able to slip through the space it made.

“I don’t like you,” her shrill voice followed him.

“Don’t care,” he called back.

He scanned the area and was thankful when he spotted Myka running just around the corner of the Tilt-A-Whirl ride.

“Myka!”

Pushing his legs harder, he picked up the pace and rounded the ride. Just at the last second he saw Myka jumping over a small fence and heading for the woods.

He vaulted over the fence and followed her.

His feet pounded on the forest’s trail, he had lost sight of her and he felt anxiety clamp around his throat. Spinning around in each direction, he finally spotted Myka leaning against a tree just off the trail.

“Myka.”

She looked up at him as she was trying to catch her breath. She was gasping a little more heavily than normal as he approached.

“You shouldn’t have pushed yourself so hard, you know you’re just getting-“

“He was getting away, Pete!”

“He isn’t more important than you.”

She sniffed and bent her head down. “He is our first potential lead.”

Pete knew now wasn’t the time for another argument.

“Where did you see him go last?”

Her breathing started to even out and she stepped away from the tree. “I almost had him when we hit the rides, surprisingly, all that muscle started to slow him down.”

“No kidding.”

“He was heading over the fence and I got one shot off from the tesla and hit him but it only just fazed him. When I went over, he was stumbling into the woods. He may have collapsed somewhere in here.”

“All right, let’s stay close to each other and look around.”

They started to move around the bushes, their eyes alert, and their fingers just off the trigger of their tesla guns.

Ten minutes and they had found no sign of him.

“Maybe the shot didn’t faze him that much and he did get away.”

Myka shrugged her shoulders in a rigid fashion. He knew she was angry with herself.

“He didn’t get away because of you, he caught us all off guard.”

She turned away from him and looked over a large collection of rocks that led into a ravine.

“Where’s…” she trailed off.

“What?”

“Where’s…H.G.?”

“She got tangled in the rope when we fell, she was alright but she told me to go.”

“You shouldn’t have left her there.”

“We both agreed it be best to give you back-up.”

He thought the frown on her face would be the only response he was getting when she didn’t say anything right away. He was wrong.

“You’re both coddling me,” she snapped. Her body was rigid with a humming tension.

“Myka,” he said calmly. “You gave us a scare back there and even you can admit Mr. Dark has a strong interest in you now. Plus, this guy is massive. It was the best course of action.”

She crossed her arms against her stomach, her hands latching on to her hips. He couldn’t tell if she was protecting herself or holding something in.

“Fine.” She shielded her body at an angle away from him. “You do it all the time anyways now. It’s suffocating. Even if you just had a reason now. You do.”

Her fingers clenched around her hips and he didn’t know how to respond.

“Is caring no longer allowed on the table any more too?”

She stared at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Too?”

“Well, talking doesn’t seem to be either. Just want to know what’s next?”

“That mouth of yours Lattimer will truly get you in trouble one day.”

A nauseating anger burned up inside of him. He clenched his fist and inhaled deeply.

“If I’m going to get in trouble, I might as well make it worth it.”

She was no longer looking at him.

“You need to talk to someone about what happened, and I’m pretty sure that person is H.G.”

She scoffed at him, a dangerous smirk slid onto her face.

“You need to confront her about her crap and then you need to tell her about your crap.”

“How poetic of you.”

“I’m serious, Myka. You can’t let it burn you up inside.”

Her eyes faltered for a second.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

“No, none of it matters now.”

“Myka, just tell her,” he implored. “She deserves to know.”

Bitter laughter tumbled out her mouth, it popped and stopped and then started again before evening out into a tremor of sound that vibrated along his skin. “She deserves no such thing.”

“She’s back at the Warehouse now, it’s all going to come out eventually.”

“You won’t be the one to tell her.” It wasn’t a statement. It was a threat.

“No, you…” he stumbled.

Her hands let go of her sides; they twitched nervously in the air and then settled at the hollow of her throat before moving to rub the back of her neck.

“What makes you think there’s a point? What makes you so sure she’s going to be staying?” she whispered.

“Because she came back on her own, just like you said she had too, before.”

“I was wrong.”

“What?”

She turned towards him, the set of her jaw was less of an angry slash but there was a resolved look in her eyes all the same. She wasn’t going to back down.

“It’s what she does. She comes and goes. She never stays in one spot. You ever listen to her stories, the ones she used to share when she was first reinstated. The clues were all there. Nothing is to tie her down. Not the Warehouse. Not even Wisconsin. She tries them all out and that’s what she will continue to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“The roles she plays. The stories she makes.”

Pete tentatively approached her. “That’s not true. You know her, Myka.”

“No, no I don’t. I was wrong.” Her steel gaze faced his. “I have no idea who she is.”

All the air inside of his chest felt like it had vanished at the absolute resolve in her voice. He shook his head. “You just need to give her a chance again.”

“What is it, third time is the charm? Or is it the fourth or fifth?” she asked, her voice softer but no less bitter. 

“Tell her.”

“Why? So she can stay out of pity?”

He took a chance and cupped the bottom of her jaw. 

“It’s never been about pity, Myka. Not for any of us. Don’t turn us away because we care.”

“She took too long, Pete,” she whispered.

“I know,” he murmured and he leaned in and enveloped her in a light hug. 

Her body tensed up at first but after a moment she sunk into his embrace and wrapped her arms lightly around his shoulders.

“Pete?”

“Yes?”

“Something is wrong with me.”

He pulled her closer. 

“Sometimes…sometimes it fills like there’s nothing inside me and then other times…there’s something and eats away at me, it wants to…” she trailed off.

“We need to tell Artie.”

She nodded against him.

“This place…”

He pulled back and faced her desperate eyes. “Makes it worse?”

She shook her head. “No, it does something else, it makes me-“ 

A shuffle in the bushes interrupted her. An almost inhuman roar echoed in the air before the Strong Man bounded out from the foliage behind them. He ran straight for them and before they had time to move, he knocked them to the ground and took off.

They both broke apart from the impact. Pete landed flat on his stomach. “Ugh, that guy needs to stop doing that.”

Reaching for his dropped tesla gun, he took a chance, charged, aimed and fired. The Strong Man was too far away. He missed.

Pete struggled to get to his feet fast enough but the guy was gone. He turned to look for Myka but she was not beside him.

“Myka?”

“Down here,” her quiet voice called out.

He shuffled over to where he heard her and found her lying down flat on her back in the small ravine.

“I think I got hit by a fire truck,” she murmured.

“Don’t move! I’m coming down.”

Pete quickly climbed down the few rocks to get to where Myka was.

“The fall really wasn’t that bad,” she began. “It was him, he almost took my shoulder off.”

Pete let his hands wandered over her body, making sure nothing else was hurt; she had luckily fallen on a soft patch of earth.

“I’m going to have to unzip your jacket and take a look.”

She nodded stiffly. He pulled the fabric back and hissed at what he saw.

“You already have a really nasty bruise forming. I don’t think it’s broken, but maybe dislocated.”

“It’s not broken,” she groaned as he helped her sit up.

“All the same, we need a doctor to look at it.”

“No, no hospitals.”

“No hospital.” He nodded as he helped her stand and then lean against a large rock. “But a doctor.”

She nodded grumpily. 

“I’m serious.”

“Fine.”

He spotted her gun a few feet ahead on the ground and went to pick it up. Something in the bush caught his eye and he paused.

“Pete?”

“We need to call the police.”

“Why?”

His eyes focused on the pale wrinkled skin he could see caught in the branches, and the weather worn down clothes, but it was the sunken eyes and smell of decay that got stronger when he approached that brought the whole picture together.

“I’ve found a body. A dead body.”


	7. Chapter 7

>   
>  “Somewhere in him, a shadow turned mournfully over. You had to run with a night like this so the sadness could not hurt.”  
> 

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

“You don’t look so good.”

Helena bent her head down as she breathed in again and exhaled.

“I’m not the one in the medic’s tent, Pete,” she murmured.

“You could be if you don’t inhale again.”

She turned in the plastic white chair she was sitting in and glared at him. He shrugged his shoulders indifferently and leant back in his chair, his eyes out on the horizon, taking in the rest of the carnival. The white tent of the medical staff sat on a small hill just off from most of the main attractions. Not many people were around them and Helena was thankful.

It was starting to feel like she could finally breathe again. She inhaled.

The flap on the tent’s entrance behind them blew gently from a warm breeze. 

Her hands shook in her lap.

Pete reached over and tentatively grasped them. She ignored her knee jerk reaction to pull away.

After a moment she gently extracted her hands from his grip and laid them across her thighs, hoping to keep up the appearance of stillness.

“What happened, H.G.?”

She shook her head. The word ‘nothing’ stalled in her throat.

“Panic attack of sorts,” she murmured.

She had been fine at first when Pete had taken off. Mostly anger had been at the forefront of her emotions at the time. Angry she had been caught up. Angry she could not immediately help.

When she had gotten free of the trappings of the rope and exited the exhibit, she’d had a few clues on where the chase had gone. Eventually, though, the crowds had grown and she had had no idea where to turn to next. 

The anxiety had slowly creeped up on her as she had turned in a circle with no idea of where to go. She knew it was being amplified beyond her control and she had tried to focus on the rage that brought on. Helena was not a fan of being manipulated.

It had worked at first. She’d made it through half of the carnival, even inquired about the Strong Man, but any time her anger stalled, the panic started to slither back in.

What if Pete and Myka never came back?

What if something had happened to them?

What if she couldn’t find her way out?

What if every piece of her disappeared here?

Normally, Helena could be the poster child for calm, cool and collected but the carnival, much like the people who knew her well, knew that there was a river of pain, anxiety and panic that rushed below the surface. The carnival was trying to get its hands inside her; trying to break apart the dam she had built piece by piece. Over a century incased in bronze had given her time to work and build but it had slowly been coming apart since she had awakened. 

She was trying to break it down herself, but piece by piece gradually. The carnival in its absolute lust wanted it all to come tumbling down at once.

She’d gotten turned around more than once and was grateful when she found a space in an alleyway between the old stone housed bathrooms that stood on the lot.

The Farnsworth rang. Her fingers shook as she opened it but they stilled when she saw Pete on the other end.

“H.G, are you all right?”

“I’m standing.”

He frowned.

“Where are you? Is Myka with you? Did you-“

“Meet us over at the white tent, you know the medic’s tent.”

A tremor moved from hand to hand as she held the device.

“Is…is everything…everyone all right?”

“Yes…” he trailed off. 

“Pete-“

“Myka just needs a check up. It’s going to be fine. It’s fine. I promise. See you soon.”

The connection broke and Helena calmly closed the device as best she could and then collapsed to the ground. Her hands coming up over her head as she felt all the worry and concern flood over her. A suffocating sensation hovered just above her skin, before it dug itself deep inside and her organs strained against the hot overpowering feeling, her lungs screaming in agony.

Her hand snapped out of nowhere and slapped the hard brick of the wall before her.

She did it again and again.

Sharp pain overtook the tremors and she found her breaths becoming more regular.

She couldn’t sit there forever. She wouldn’t have put Pete in a position to have to come and find her and possibly leave Myka.

Slowly, she had stood up. Her eyes not settling on the people around her but only her destination and step-by-step she had made her way.

“Good on you, making it here on your own,” Pete spoke up from their watchful spot. 

“Myka shouldn’t be alone in there.”

He leant back on his chair, the front legs lifting up as he tilted his neck back and glanced through a small space in the tent. With a soft thud, the front legs fell back down on the ground and he turned to look at her.

“It’s just the one medic in there. I already interrogated him. He doesn’t even technically work for the carnival, the carnival hires out medical services from whatever place they travel too. Legal reasons. And the medics work in shifts. He said so far none of them have had time to go into the actual carnival. “

“Still, we should have taken her to a doctor away from here.”

“Needed her to be assessed right away and I had to wait for the police to arrive.”

Her hands shook ever so slightly as she grasped the arm handles of her chair.

“Myka isn’t going to take any drugs from the medic, okay, and you’ll be happy to know that on the walk back Myka agreed that she shouldn’t come back to the carnival after today. I called Claudia in for back-up, she’ll be here tomorrow.”

Helena inhaled and exhaled; her hands gripped the chair a little looser.

“What brought that on?” she asked with relief.

“Besides the human bulldozer that almost tore her shoulder off? 

Helena found the power to raise one perfectly raised eyebrow at him.

“Not a panic attack per say, more self-realization.”

“That’s good,” she murmured.

“Yes, but what are we going to do about you? You’re trembling like a leaf.”

“I hate that phrase,” she muttered. “Leafs don’t tremble all on their own, there is a wind, an outside force, it does not come from within too-

“Doesn’t mean it’s any less true. Technically, it is an outside force of-”

“It’s fine, I am trying to focus on other things.”

“Like?”

“Tell me about this body you found and why we’re currently blocked from further investigation.”

“I couldn’t identify much, just that the person was really, really, really old. Like ancient, kind of like how I imagine you’d look if you hadn’t been all persevered all nice with the bronze and your Victorian moisturizers-“

He was interrupted as she slapped him across the chest. “Someone has died.”

“I know, but see how steady your hand was there when you hit me. Not a tremor in sight.”

“Your tactic is to be an ass so I will hit you?”

“Worked didn’t it. Now you’re getting all riled up again. I can take one for the team.” 

She faltered in what to say next as he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Some officers arrived and took over. I called Claudia and she said she’d hack their databases for further intel on what they find.”

“It could be an unrelated death.”

He snorted. “You don’t believe that.”

“No, but I can hope.”

The entrance flap to the tent was pulled away abruptly and a young man dressed in a medic personnel outfit walked out to stand beside them. His handsome face was twisted in a look of concern.

“Either of you her medical contact?”

“Why do you ask?” Pete replied.

“Is everything all right?” Helena said almost at the same time, her hands latching back onto the arm rests.

“It’s surprisingly not broken, just the muscle has been pulled and there’s a lot of bruising. I recommend rest, icing and heat alternately and if the pain is an issue some regular painkillers from the pharmacy will do.”

The man did not leave right away, his mouth twisting in a way that led Helena to believe he had more words he wanted to get out.

“You guys her partners? Her fellow agents I mean?”

They both nodded.

“How well do you know her?”

“Look, buddy, what are you getting at, spit it out,” Pete half-barked. 

The medic flinched and then scowled. “If it was me and that was my partner in there,” he started, his voice taking on a hard edge. “I’d be wondering what the hell she’s doing in the field so soon in her condition.”

Any fight in Pete immediately deflated as he looked like he had been slapped across the face, his body crumbling into the chair.

“She tell you?” he asked in clear shock.

The man nodded, now that he had voiced his angry concern, his face was smoothing out.

“She only told me when I started being adamant that she go to the hospital for x-rays. The bruising was…well…anyways, it is only my place to express some concern, there’s nothing else I can do. I apologize for my out burst. She’ll be out soon, she’s just icing it.” He turned and disappeared back into the tent. 

Helena was practically clawing at the skin on her clavicle. “What does he mean in her condition and so soon?” she shuddered the words out in one horrible broken breath.

Pete wouldn’t look at her. “Not now, H.G., the guy doesn’t even have all the facts. What does he know?”

“He clearly has more facts than I do,” she snapped.

Pete looked at her wearily out of the corner of his eye. “It’s not my place to tell you, it could have been, but thank god it isn’t anymore.” His palms came up and rubbed at his eyes. “Just honestly be glad it isn’t me telling you.”

“You’re scaring me,” she whispered.

He faced her and nothing in his expression spoke of any kind of comfort. “You know, I don’t think there’s actually a right time for a lot of things,” he said.

“Pete, I want to know, right now-,” she demanded, her voice shaking.

“Ask her,” he interrupted. “Ask her tonight. Don’t wait. I was wrong. Who knew a carnival would be emotionally fucking with us on top of everything else. So, do it. Ask her. Everyone knows you two are horrible at timing, so just do it as soon as you can.”

“Pete-“

“You guys have been dancing around each other for too long and it’s only been two weeks since you’ve been back, and yet it feels like forever. So just rip that band-aid off because I can’t take this any longer. I can’t keep it in anymore.”

She sat further back in her chair, her spine a hard line against it. “You have said nothing to make me feel less anxious.”

“Don’t be a coward, H.G.,” he whispered, his hands now hiding part of his face from her. “I want to believe you are no longer one.”

Words trembled on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them back down past the lump that formed in her throat.

“Is Myka all right?” she asked instead.

Pete remained quiet.

Her brain flashed through all the things she had catalogued and she found the words suddenly spilling out. “Now that I think about it she does appear to look a little better than the last time I saw you in Boone. She was very pale and gaunt. But now, while she indeed seems to be even a few more pounds lighter, there is color in her cheeks.”

“It’s a tough job, the last year has run us ragged.”

“Is that all it is?”

Pete wouldn’t look at her. “You know, this isn’t just your first mission back in the field in a while.” 

“Pete-“

“Are you staying this time?” he blurted out, his eyes finally glancing at her.

“What?”

“I’m asking what your plan is, with the Warehouse, with everything…” he trailed off. “Are you staying for sure?”

“Where is this coming from?”

“Don’t sound so defensive, just asking a question, it be nice to know if we’re just another transition period.”

“I came back because the Warehouse and the B&B is where I want to be.”

“For now,” he murmured. 

“Only back for two weeks and I’m already supposed to be laying out my future for you?”

“I just wonder what made you decide to come back.”

“I thought it was written all over my face why I came back,” she snapped.

His head swiveled towards her lazily and he smiled tightly. “You took a long time to come back.”

Her spine somehow snapped back even straighter against the chair. 

“I mean don’t get me wrong, I totally ascribe to the belief of better late than never but…”

“Why did none of you ever ask me to come back yourselves if I was taking so long?” she came back with.

“Because you wouldn’t have come. Myka said so and I think she was right. She said you had to come back on your own. You were building your safety net and pushing yourself away because you always hurt the ones you love. Am I close? Clichés are clichés for a reason.”

Helena found the air around them too stifling, she stood up and started to pace.

“Who can say if you did more damage by leaving than staying?”

“Something tells me you do have an opinion on that one.” Her words struggled to get out her contracting chest.

“Myka doesn’t think you will be staying.”

Helena stopped at once and spun around to face him.

“She’s usually right about that stuff. I don’t want her to be right.” There was a hint of desperation in his voice, but his face was like stone as he shrugged his shoulders at her and then leant his head back. “That’s why I ask. That’s all.”

Slowly, she sat back down in her chair. “Sometimes, on the days when I wasn’t that great at pretending, I was so angry at the two of you for leaving me there, in Boone.”

“You would have resented us. I mean you did a good job just with your words showing Myka how much you despised the idea of our daily life.”

Her hands started to shake again.

“I know I hurt her.”

“Yah and in the process I don’t think you saved her any pain.”

“I had built more than just the wall and the moat as you say.”

Pete snorted. “You had a drawbridge that was totally out of service too.”

“It sickens me to think of the lives I was adapting, they were so eerily similar to what was expected of me back in my time and all along there was a place where I could really be who I was, with the right people and…and I threw it away.”

“Normal is overrated.” He smirked at her.

“Anything not considered normal in my time was considered a disease, doubly so if you were a woman.”

“Didn’t sound like you believed it back then and now-“

“It didn’t always matter if I didn’t believe it, much of society then could rip you to shreds for the slightest infraction. This world now, despite a few of my concerns, does indeed seem to have a few less hang ups on what a person can do with their life. I would like to take advantage of that.”

“But you were a Warehouse agent even back then, you already had advantages.”

“I still had to hide who I was from practically everyone I knew.”

“You don’t have to do that now.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Is that your answer then?”

She nodded slowly. 

“I’m not the only one who needs to hear the answer.”

“Well aware,” she replied as she turned to glance back at the tent, but the flap was firmly in place and she saw no sign of Myka. “Once more into the breach I go.”

“Is that a euphemism now? Actually, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

Her hand was quick.

“Ow,” he cried. “Watch the hair.”

“I’ve only been giving you lee way with your language because Myka is so unresponsive. Don’t get too comfy.”

“Slapping me at random times, is you giving lee way?”

“I thought it’s supposed to help me with the panic.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered as he fixed his hair.

With nary a dark cloud in the mid-day sky, a gloomy feeling hovered over them all at once. 

“Do you feel that?” she asked, her eyes scanning the sunny sky.

“Something tells me it has to do with what’s heading our way, over there.” 

She turned and squinted her eyes down the slope of the hill and towards the distance where a shadow approached. Raising her hand over her eyes to block out the sun, she saw that it was no shadow but a man. A man dressed all in black.

“Bollocks.”

“Sounds about right,” Pete grimaced.

Neither of them spoke as they waited with held breath for Mr. Dark to reach them.

“Hello,” his smooth voice carried over to them before his tall, sturdy form did.

A reply was not echoed on their tongues.

Mr. Dark stood before them and took his top hat off and held it against his stomach in a mocking sign of respect. Helena could only find every tick and twitch of his to be of a sardonic nature. When not grinning, when his dark eyes were not evaluating the prize before him with a hunger, his every action was that of an actor who knew all his lines for a play no one else was a part of. 

The man could not help but quirk his lips in a familiar seductive smile as he looked off towards the sun and ran a hand through his dark curls. They were unfortunately very luscious locks. 

Helena scowled.

He turned back to them, the smile slipping off and a look of concern falling into place like a mask.

“I am very troubled by the news of your day so far.”

A combination of a scoff and the words of a disbelieving nature rolled on her tongue but she was only able to make a slight sniff escape before Pete stood up and angled his body half in front of hers.

“Yes, it has been an unexpected set of events,” Pete said. His voice was neither hard nor soft. It was a neutral tone and Helena knew it would do them no good for her to use her voice.

“I would like to inquire about Ms. Bering-“

“How long has your Strong Man worked for you?” Pete interrupted.

“Uh,” the tall man stuttered before his slippery smile popped back up. “I believe just a few months, since the start of the season.”

“We will need to see any employee information you have.”

“Of course.” Mr. Dark bowed his head slightly. “I’m afraid that I do not know all my employees on such a personal level, but I am just as surprised as you are about his actions and it fills me with dread to think he is responsible for anyone’s disappearance. I sincerely hope the police find him soon, he cannot hide for long.”

A strange sound caught in Helena’s throat. She swallowed and neither Pete nor Mr. Dark acknowledged her.

“And what about the body?” Pete asked.

Mr. Dark’s eyelids fluttered faster than normal.

“Surely, you can see I am just as shocked about that as you are.”

Pete crossed his arms.

“I will be working to help the police in any way I can with the investigation but the body was not even found on the grounds of my carnival.”

“And that immediately absolves you of any possible accountability,” Helena snapped dryly. Her own eyes widened in shock even before Pete had a chance to shoot her a not so subtle glare.

“Ah, Ms.,” he paused, waiting for her to fill in the blank but she had no desire too.

“Agent Wells,” Pete supplied.

“Yes, Agent Wells, I must apologize for any stress you have endured at my carnival today due to this. It is not just about if I find myself responsible or not, I just know it is my job to make sure things run smoothly here in the carnival and everyone has a good time.” His ink filled irises fixated on her. “I can see that you are quite shook up and I wish to extend any possible hand of help.”

“I am fine,” she muttered through clenched teeth.

For a second his trademark smile fluttered on his face before his lips twisted into a firm line of concentration.

“Of course, of course you are fine, Agent Wells.”

Thin fingers slipped back around the armrests beside her. He was ridiculing her and they both knew it.

“Thank you for your concern,” Pete interrupted hurriedly, his eyes glancing between the two of them, willing Helena not to push it further. “We appreciate you helping with the investigation in any way.”

“Yes, but I would not be a gentlemen if I did not inquire about Myka Bering. I heard she was injured and I wish to see her-“

“She’s fine,” Helena snapped. She breathed in but the air only seemed to rattle in her chest, it caught and stuttered as she tried to exhale.

Mr. Dark smirked at her.

“We will tell her you stopped by,” she finally gasped out.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Pete added.

“Right, of course.” Mr. Dark placed his hat back on his head. “If you need anything and can’t find me please ask any of the employees here. While the Strong Man may have been a bad egg, the rest are not, I can assure you. And I hope you will not be rude about it.” His eyes lingered on Pete at the end of his sentence. 

“I wasn’t-“ Pete strangely sputtered.

“No matter,” Mr. Dark continued. “Please send my regards to Myka and I shall make sure someone drops off the employee information you asked for.”

He turned to leave. “Oh, and Agent Wells, I hope you will recover quickly from these unfortunate events.”

Mockery walked on two legs as Mr. Dark left.

“Do you think he knows he dresses like some kind of hipster indie music artist? He-“

“Pete,” Helena said quietly.

Pete dropped back down in his seat and turned to look at her. “Jeez,” he blurted out when he saw how badly she was shaking now that Mr. Dark had left. “Breathe, H.G.!”

“I’m trying,” she panicked.

Breathing was becoming painful, as the anxiety had only tripled since Mr. Dark’s encounter.

Pete slipped down on his knees in front of her seat. “Just focus on what a douche that guy was and how much you hate him. Remember, focus that rage.”

“It’s not…that…easy,” she spluttered not in the least bit delicately. Flustered, she bent forward, the air stalling and drying up for her.

Pete’s eyes darted back and forth. “Hey, hey, remember how annoying I am. Remember how I was probably snoring last night and…”

He hit her on the back once and she sucked in a gulp of fresh air. He crouched back down in front of her. She was still panicking. 

“Uh…uh…” he continued before his eyes focused and he smiled suddenly. “Hey, did I ever tell you about when you were away, I got Myka pregnant?”

Flesh smacked against flesh.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning that things will be getting darker in the next few chapters.

>   
>  “Somehow, irresistibly, the prime thing was: nothing mattered. Life in the end seemed a prank of such size you could only stand off at this end of the corridor to note its meaningless length and it's quite unnecessary height, a mountain built to such ridiculous immensities you were dwarfed in its shadow and mocking of its pomp.”  
> 

Myka rested her head against the inside glass window of the car. In the rearview mirror she could make out a few of the carnival rides still in action in the afternoon light. Mr. Electro’s sign glowed even brighter it seemed. Each letter a corrosive burn on the horizon.

It was Helena’s turn to run into the pharmacy after a day at the carnival. Both Pete and Helena had been adamant that she not take any pain meds from the on site medic. She hadn’t fought them on it. The pain in her shoulder was a dull throb, she wasn’t even sure if she needed the meds Helena had gone to get but she knew it was best not to argue.

Her gaze slid over towards Pete in the driver’s seat, he was quiet, too quiet.

Lifting her head up she caught his eye and he only continued to frown at her. A quiet frown impossible not to sense for the absence of words made his judgment that much more apparent. There was nothing else to focus on.

“Pete.”

He grunted.

“You have a bruise just under your left eye, that wasn’t there before.”

He adjusted the mirror between them so he could get a better look at his face.

“Must have gotten it when I fell.”

Neither of them was convinced by his mumbled excuse.

“It looks like a few knuckle impressions, I don’t remember him punching you-“

“What does it matter how I got the bruise, it’s nothing in comparison to yours.”

“It’s not a competition,” she replied stiffly, she was starting to wonder why she’d bothered asking.

He sighed. “I’m fine. I was taking one for the team.”

“Whatever,” she muttered and went back to staring out her window at the blinking ‘Open’ sign in the Pharmacy storefront.

“Mr. Dark dropped by when you were getting checked out,” Pete offered up.

“Yah, did he put a curse on you guys right and there?” 

“It’s not funny, Myka.”

Her uninjured shoulder made an effort to shrug itself.

“Maybe a little. Maybe we just don’t know the punch line yet.”

“He wanted to see you.”

“And my knight in shining armor saved the day.”

“Knights,” he corrected.

“And now I shall remain free from any further hardships.”

Pete turned to glare at her. “He wants something from you.”

“Did he clarify what that is, when you two were being so gallant?”

“Drop the attitude, Myka.”

She pressed her forehead against the glass. It was nice and warm from the sun and she was trying to transfer some of the heat through her skin. 

“Sorry,” she muttered. “Everything feels a bit murky still.”

Pete didn’t say anything. 

“I don’t know what he wants, Pete,” she said softly.

“I thought maybe it was just you know,” he paused to motion at her.

“What?”

“You know, your hot bod.”

She shook her head, her forehead rubbed the glass and it squeaked. “Please don’t say that.”

“What? It’s obvious. Lord knows he immediately got H.G.’s hackles raised from the moment he looked at you.”

Myka sat up straight and laughed harshly. “Ring the alarm.”

“It’s not just about jealously,” Pete intoned. 

“Good, because it be rich hearing you make decisions from whether or not H.G. was jealous.”

“I meant at first. But it’s not just-”

“Yes, well I could care less about that observation.”

“I don’t think you should, I think you should take it to-“

Her head whipped around fast, a little too fast, her shoulder tensed up a little. “Can we just drop this,” she ground out. “I really wish we could not base all our decisions on some vibe you get that could just be your stomach acting up, or the whims of a woman who seems to constantly forget other people have lives of their own and are not her chess piece to be moved around.”

A pulse started at the back of neck and traveled quickly to what felt like every nerve in her brain. She leant forward and rubbed her temples.

Pete was silent for a beat before asking, “Headache?”

“Yes.” Her jaw clenched tighter.

“Yah, I got one of those too yesterday right before I was a huge asshole as well.”

Her teeth started to grind together. She willed herself not to reply.

“Let’s not talk until we are another two blocks away from the carnival and back at the motel. But just know that my opinion of Mr. Dark and same as Helena’s has to do with the fact that he wants something. I think he wants something from all of us. But you’re the prize.”

“Goody for me,” she hissed as she sat back up and refused to look at him.

At that moment Helena opened the back seat door and got in with a small paper bag. The tension in the air was palpable for Helena merely raised both her eyebrows at the two of them and then silently did her seatbelt up.

“Everything all right?” she tentatively asked.

Pete started the car up. “There’s been a no talking rule implemented until we get to the motel.”

“Oh…” the other woman trailed off and then closed her mouth.

The tension was suffocating. Myka rolled her window down.

It only started to ease the further away Pete drove, but Myka kept her eyes on the Ferris Wheel in the rearview mirror for as long as she could for the whole trip.

 

The fluorescent light of the shoddy motel bathroom had just barely the glow of a firefly bug when she flipped the switch. It flickered three times and buzzed loudly before burning brighter.

Myka pushed the door shut but left a small gap open. She could hear the Farnsworth going off just outside and wanted to hear what she could.

Pete answered from his spot on the couch just outside the bathroom door.

“Hey, Claud, what do you have for us?”

“The heebie jeebies.”

“Why’s that?”

“It sounds like you are asking me to come into hell, you know that, right dude.”

“Have you packed?” 

“Loaded the car up, will be leaving shortly, I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

“Good, because tomorrow is their last day here, before they move on to another unsuspecting town.”

“And the spreading of the heebie jeebies will commence,” she groaned.

“What did you find out?” Helena’s voice carried over.

Myka began to slowly unzip her jacket and peel it off.

“Police headquarters were pretty frazzled, sounds like the Police Chief himself has been AWOL, people calling in asking for sick days or vacation days, clearly playing hookie to go to the carnival. So they’re understaffed, but the body was basically the only open case they had. Hacking their database for the info was easy.”

Gingerly, Myka began to take off her t-shirt, she tensed preparing for any sharp pain, but all that remained was a dull throb that did not hinder her in her action.

“Identification found on the body was for one Jacob Roads,” Claudia continued.

“What?” Pete gasped. “The description the Police Chief had given us for Jacob was that he was in his fifties and that body was like-“

“Super, super old,” Claudia finished. “At first they figured the dead guy stole his wallet but DNA came back about an hour ago and the results hit as one Jacob Roads. The police think their samples have been tainted. Everybody there knows of Jacob, he’s always in for drunken behavior based on his record.”

“The Merry-Go-Round,” Helena murmured. 

“Why?” Pete asked. “Who would want to go forward on that thing and the guy is dead now, looks like-“

“It could have been an accident,” Helena supplied. “Whatever the combination of artifacts, with each use, the Merry-Go-Round could be becoming unstable.”

“It’s a possibility,” Claudia jumped in. “But both Melissa, Brandon and Stacey went missing after Jacob.”

“We have no proof that the others are younger though, we never found them. Who knows if they even used the Merry-Go-Round?”

“Myka seemed sure,” Claudia said.

Both Pete and Helena were suspiciously quiet. Myka undid her bra as she tilted her ear closer towards the door.

“Myka is…” Pete trailed off quietly.

“How is Myka?” Claudia interrupted. “Shoulder a-okay?”

“Surprisingly, yes,” Pete answered. “The Strong Man was huge but Myka actually appears better than okay about the arm.”

“Is that odd?” Claudia asked in confusion.

Again there was silence on the other side of the door.

“We don’t know,” Helena supplied. 

“What does that mean?”

“We don’t know, Claud,” Pete spoke up. “Is Artie back?”

“Not yet. I’ve kept him updated, but communication has been sparse, for whatever reason he and Steve are scouring the underground sewers of New York.”

“Chud?” Pete gasped with a little excitement.

“I was hoping Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle artifact,” Claudia replied. “Either way, I’m sure it’s not as fun as we think.”

“Okay, if you hear from him, can you get him to call me please?”

“What? I’m not doing a good enough job?” Claudia’s tone went up two degrees.

“What, no, you’re fine, it’s fine. I know you’re busy becoming one with the Warehouse and learning from Mrs. F, and in between all of that you’re still being our kickass agent helper. You are the best. It’s just…just other things I need Artie for.”

“Like what? Man stuff? Do you need etiquette tips on how to trim your nose hairs? Are your eyebrows becoming sentient?”

“I’m hanging up on you now,” he remarked. “Have a safe drive. Let us know if your research picks up anything new. We will figure out a game plan before you get here.”

“Will do. Bye,” Claudia signed off.

Myka listened for a beat by the door but neither Helena or Pete spoke further. The television was turned on and the sound of cartoons was the only noise.

With a gentle nudge she closed the door the rest of the way. She slipped her jeans off and then her underwear and socks. Standing naked in front of the vanity mirror in the limited yellow light was not exactly flattering.

Stepping closer to the sink and mirror she finally got a good look at her hit shoulder. There was already a dark blue bruise with yellow and purple that started from the left side of her clavicle and then down her shoulder and the top part of her arm. It looked extremely nasty.

Watching her reflection, she lifted her hand up and pressed against the discolored and swelling skin. She watched her face and there was no reaction. No hiss, no flinch.

She knew she should feel some sort of pain. She did not.

She was not frightened by this.

She knew on some level she should have been but only a subdued gaze met her in the mirror.

That same muted look travelled down the length of her torso. Turning sidewise in front of the mirror, she noted the ribs that were more prominent against her skin and the lack of muscle definition. Nothing in her face changed.

She faced the mirror head on as a finger trailed over the surgical scars on her stomach. It didn’t tickle at all.

Reaching over towards the shower, she turned it on, the dial turning all the way to the hot side.

She waited a bit until she could see steam rising out from the bath and then she stepped into the shower and pulled the curtain along.

If it hadn’t been for the steam, she would not have believed the water was as hot as it could be.

If it weren’t for the fact that her skin was turning red from it, she would have denied its possibility.

The hot water was like a tentative handshake, slightly sweaty and faltering on her skin.

She pushed her injured shoulder towards the showerhead regardless and hoped to feel some sort of heat beat through.

 

The motel room was stifling. It was hard not to feel cramped with the three of them stuck in it together. The tension between them had lessened since arriving at the residence but Myka was well aware of the looks Pete and Helena shared and while she felt no urge to snap at them, she sought refuge outside on the patio of sorts.

After her shower she had napped lightly while Helena had gone and procured dinner. Over an early dinner they had worked over a possible plan for finding what was controlling the carnival. Myka had thrown in as much information as she could about the book, well aware that she was now downgraded to research duty.

Conversation in between had been sparse. 

Leaving the carnival grounds and getting as much space as they could from it had the effect of a bubble popping around them. The air immediately deflated.

Pete’s worry had curbed any of his urges on the second day. But he was suddenly on edge even sitting in the substandard comfort of the motel room.

While she had yet to hear any vocal distress from Helena, it was hard not to spot her little quirks that Myka knew revealed certain things if one were looking hard enough. The carnival set Helena’s nerves on end. She was too quiet. Helena was scared.

Myka knew from her love of the book that Mr. Dark’s traveling carnival could work it’s magic over people in a varying degrees of mischief. Every individual was unique. Every soul was it’s very own. A trap needed to be set for each.

And Myka knew hers.

Some were subtle, some were overt and Myka’s draw to the carnival was certainly unique. 

Because Myka Bering had a terrible secret. 

Her eyes were drawn to the swirling lights of the tip of the carnival’s Ferris Wheel over the block of houses. The sun was down and darkness was settling in around the town. The lights of the ride scattered in the near blackness like falling twinkling stars cast out of heaven.

The door beside her opened and she averted her gaze and stared off down the empty street.

Her intruder sat down in the chair beside her. A small dingy metal table sat between them and Myka was suddenly thankful for cheap tetanus carrying furniture.

“Myka,” Helena spoke quietly.

Somehow it already felt like a question.

She looked at the other women out of the corner of her eye. “Yes,” she replied, for she would not say the name, she would not give voice to all her own questions, for there were many.

Helena’s fingers tentatively gripped the table. 

“Myka,” Helena began. “There are a great many things I wish to speak to you about. I fear a great many things in doing so. Mostly, I know perhaps I do not merit the breath to speak of the words I wish. I fear that you will not lend me your ear. I know that…” she trailed off, her eyes darted back and forth. “Amends is a bridge I wish to cross with you but I have no right to push that on you again, therefore I ask…”

Her fingernails strained against the table. “How have you been?”

It was surprising how the air burst out of Myka’s chest and that the sound it made was of a cackling low laugh that tumbled out of her mouth so freely, for she was not expecting it. The sudden action caught them both off guard.

Helena’s face fell for a moment but she did not budge from her seat. It occurred to Myka that Helena was choosing this exact moment not to leave. The other woman was standing her ground. 

The timing was incredibly poor, but Myka was in no mood to share the reason.

“Just great,” she replied in a tone that said anything but. Another abrupt laugh escaped before she closed her mouth in a firm line.

Silence settled between them, only the distant shrill laughs and screams from passengers on the carnival rides curled in the air around them.

“You stopped answering my phone calls?” Helena spoke after a beat.

Myka shrugged. “I was busy.”

“Yes, Claudia supplied me with many possible excuses.” There was a slight bite to her words and Myka sensed she was working to keep her tone light.

“I **was** busy,” she intoned again.

“Busy falling in love with Pete?” It came out like half a joke but fell flat.

Helena’s tone was stronger, less controlled. 

“That was an artifact but I suppose…” she trailed off, she eyed Helena and waited till they were making eye contact before she continued. “I was very busy at the time. Preoccupied, I imagine, would be a better word.”

Helena flinched. Myka strangely did not feel a reaction. She had spoken like she had wanted to feel something in return. She tried again.

“Can you do me the same? Is there some artifact to explain for your ‘busyness’ or ‘preoccupiedness’?”

Words did not fling out her mouth. They simply tumbled tiredly. Somewhere a part of her had waited to say such things and yet the rest of her was not responding.

“Perhaps that was not fair of me,” Helena replied, her voice cracking.

The sky was almost a full a black. The carnival lights burned themselves into the scenery in front of them. Myka’s eyes followed them.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“All of this matters,” Helena spoke up. “ I wish…I wish to know what I missed in my time away.”

“Should we start with when Artie went evil and killed Leena?”

Helena’s entire body went still beside her. Myka’s tone was still light, perhaps that was the problem, but if the other woman wanted the pieces to the puzzle, she’d give them the only way she could. There may have been a disconnect somewhere inside of her but she still felt the words she had recited over and over for months. Like a script she had memorized, she began her role call.

“You do remember Leena, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Helena stuttered the one word. “I was very sorry to hear-“

“And then Claudia stabbed Artie in the heart to save the world.”

Fireworks went off in the distance. Light rained over the town. Myka followed them but Helena did not turn to.

“We waited until Artie was well again to hold Leena’s funeral. But I don’t think any of us were well again, just…better at coping.”

Helena didn’t take her pause as an opening.

“There was also the whole bit before that with saving Steve. I mean I don’t know if that was on your radar, but he was dead. Claudia went off the deep end a bit.”

Up and around the Ferris Wheel went in the distance as fireworks sparked around it.

“It sort of didn’t help when she found out her older dead sister was actually alive and in an artifact coma.”

Silence met her after every pause.

“I’m pretty sure even without the artifact that affected me and Pete, he was having an identity crisis long before that. Baby fever.”

Helena oddly cringed.

“What…what artifact was it that made you two believe-?” Helena finally voiced. It was an easy thing to take advantage of out of all the other points.

“Banjos,” she replied. 

“Banjos,” Helena mumbled to herself.

“Oh, and the Warehouse almost moved to China.”

Myka kept her eyes on the horizon where the wheel turned and turned.

“And what PTA meetings did you attend while away? What recipes did you learn in your cooking classes? Shall we both fill in the spaces of time?”

Helena flinched and strangely Myka took no pleasure from it.

“Maybe,” Helena began, her voice low. “After you have finished.”

It was only a fraction of a turn that Myka moved to glance at her; she still faced the open street. “Finished?”

Helena nodded. “You did not say much about yourself.”

“Maybe that is because not much more happened to me.”

“But you were oh, so **busy** , Myka,” Helena replied and there was a bitterness that underlined the words and Myka knew then and there that her non-returned phone calls had caused more pain than she’d previously imagined.

“What do you wish to know?” she replied, her body dropping a degree lower in the chair.

“The medic…he mentioned something about you being in a certain condition and…”

“And what?”

“Myka, you did not look well when I last saw you, I thought perhaps,” her voice broke. “I thought maybe it was just due to your job but even though you appear better now by a certain degree, it is obvious that something has happened.”

The familiar surprising empty laugh huffed past her lips. “What would that be exactly?”

“Have you been sick?” A strong puff of breath exhaled after her question, as though she was braced for impact.

Myka mulled over answering. A secret is not really a secret when all but one person does not know. Was there a point anymore?

She had far bigger truths to keep buried.

“Did an artifact-“

“Not an artifact,” she interrupted abruptly.

“Then-“

“Cancer.”

On the other side of the table there was sharp intake of breath.

“Myka…” The one name quivered in the air between them.

Another burst of fireworks went off from the carnival grounds and Myka watched as each color splattered across the night sky.

Red.

Yellow.

Blue.

Red.

“Myka.”

Yellow.

Blue.

“Myka.”

Red.

“Myka, look at me, please!”

Myka blinked as she slowly turned away from the exploding lights.

“Hel…” she trailed off. She blinked again.

“Myka, what…kind of cancer?”

Myka did not blink so hurriedly. She recalled her lines, she recalled the endless rewrites she had run through in her head over what this conversation would have gone like at so many different points in time.

“Ovarian,” she murmured.

“When…when were you diagnosed?”

“A little while after I saw you in Boone, turns out I was sick then.”

Helena was having difficulty composing herself. Myka observed her in a detached fashion. Perhaps, there was a little curiosity. It peaked as she saw Helena inhale desperately; her eyes fluttering around with unshed tears.

It was having an impact; at least for one of them. 

“Why…why didn’t you tell me? You should have told me when we talked-“

Another burst of fireworks took to the air, their colors somehow a stronger vibrancy, their noise a symphony of booms that were louder than before. Myka watched. 

Boom.

Color.

Boom.

It echoed in her. Her eyes drank the color in.

“Dying is messy, Emily Lake didn’t do messy,” she responded suddenly, she swore for a moment she could feel the heat from the fireworks, that they were getting closer.

That had never been in her script before. She’d never put it to the page. It had merely only ever been a lingering footnote.

The fireworks started to die down and she faced the other woman again. She felt like the heat from the show lingered in the air around her. Curiosity flamed brighter.

She noticed the way Helena’s face was a mixture of crumbling sadness, shock and…her eyes flickered towards the firm line of her mouth, anger.

“That’s not…” Helena stuttered. 

“You wanted less mess. You wanted normal. I suppose, technically, dying is really the most normal thing any of us do though. What a conundrum.”

“Stop it. Stop talking this way.”

The last of the carnival’s illuminations disappeared in the sky with one last colorful pop.

“What do you wish me to say?”

“So many things,” Helena laughed desperately, a tear fell from her eye.

Myka wished the night wasn’t so barren now. 

“Please, if you wish to speak in this manner, explain, explain all of it, how-“

“At first when I found out, I didn’t tell anyone,” Myka began; she felt the script pages moving. All the things in the past she had wanted to voice, she had wanted to scream.

“I was in shock. I was angry. I was scared. But the funny…the funny thing is how you wonder how you’re going to tell, tell anyone else. How will they take it? Will their pain just be another load for you? Will it break you? You’re the one who needs the treatment and yet, yet you wonder, how shall I provide the medicine so they won’t fall?”

Helena remained quiet. Moisture glistened on her cheeks but she did not move to wipe the tears away, she stayed still.

“Eventually, well…I had to tell someone. Just…I broke down and told Pete and you know…he was actually the best, he…” she trailed off, she felt the memory at the forefront of her mind, she could almost recall the warmth of his embrace.

“I had surgery right away. They took parts of me out, all the rotten bits, the disease, and the organs that were no longer going to be mine. Never to be whole. But can you be whole if the parts you have are already corrupted…”

“Oh, Myka-“

“You remember…hate, and how…hate so easily grows like a cancer.” Another older memory dredged up; there was the dust, the smell of books, but no touch, no warmth.

“You did nothing to deserve this,” Helena intoned.

“But it was there, nonetheless, for how long…”

“Cancer is not given as a punishment, it is a cruel mocking spin of fate that has no desire for any order. It is not a plan, it is but-“

“I know what it is. I know so very well. They did not cut all the disease out of me.”

“It had spread,” Helena murmured in fear.

Myka nodded. “My prognosis was not good. I was given limited options. It was to be my decision. I decided not to do treatment, I…if I was going to die, I wanted to die in my own body, not a shell…”

Helena’s hand tentatively reached across the table but Myka remained curled in her seat.

“But of course, once everyone knew…well I guess, Claudia said it was like giving up, and Pete, he was furious, Artie…he was already in artifact research mode. And Steve…Steve and Abigail were the most understanding but it all reeked from them that I was laying down without a fight. But how to explain, sometimes, when you just know.”

“Did Artie find something?”

“No, not at first, too many consequences I wouldn’t allow. I went for the treatments.”

“And they worked?”

“For a while.”

“You got better then?” 

“No,” Myka stated blankly. 

“But-“ Helena began. Desperation coated her cry, conviction followed in the air. Myka knew how the song played out. Confusion was no doubt in Helena’s eyes but she refused to look.

The door to the motel room burst open.

“Helena?” Pete called as he slid out into the doorway. He took in their setting, his eyes strained and he spotted Myka sitting in the shadows and he swore. “Shit. My bad, uh, crap!” He grabbed his face. “Please, you two tell me you were almost at the end and were about to kiss and make-up.”

Silence only greeted him.

“I’ve only made it more awkward haven’t I?”

“Now is not a good time,” Helena’s somber voice spoke up.

“Did you find something out?” Myka asked. She had already spent time and time again having this conversation even without a partner to play off of.

Helena’s sadness and anger was always to be a possibility. It was one of the endless outcomes Myka had predicted. Time had a way of softening the blow.

“Uh, yah, maybe, but look-“

Myka stood up and walked past the table. “Show us then if it’s important.”

Unexpectedly, Helena reached out and grabbed her hand. “This is important, Myka.” The other woman invaded her space as she stood up and refused to let go. “This is of a far greater importance.”

In the reflection of the motel room’s window Myka could see the Ferris Wheel continuing it’s rounds.

Helena’s touch felt like she was only feeling it through several layers. It hovered above her skin.

The lights danced on the window.

“It was once,” she started. “But you missed it and I will not let any one else die because you were late.”

Without a second thought she pulled her hand free, Helena winced as she did so. She breezed past a worried Pete and went inside. 

For a moment Pete lingered just outside of the door, she heard him mumble something but Helena did not reply. 

Even in the room, the curtains half drawn over the window, Myka could still see a sliver of the Ferris Wheels lights. A familiar passage from the book ran through her mind.

_“Oh God, midnight’s not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two’s not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there’s hope, for dawn’s just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying.”_

She glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. It was just past midnight.

_“Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had the strength to rouse up, you’d slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot!”_

The clock clicked as the digits slid forward.

_“But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that’s burned dry.”_

Turning back to the window, she spotted the moon, a bright moon that hung almost unrealistically to close over the carnival.

_“The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It’s a long way back to sunset, a far way to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead — And wasn’t it true, had he read somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. than at any other time … ”_

The door slammed shut and she jumped. A solemn looking Pete headed towards the bathroom with a mumble, “She just needs a minute. Maybe you need a minute, I don’t know. Who knows?”

The bathroom door closed and Myka was alone. 

_The soul is out._

Alone with her thoughts. 

_The blood moves slow._

Alone with her view.

_You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying._

She had no plans to sleep tonight. 

_It’s a long way back to sunset._


	9. Chapter 9

>   
>  “The Witch who might draw skulls and bones in the dust, then sneeze it away. […] She could dip down her hands to feel the bumps of the world, touch house roofs, probe attic bins, reap dust, examine draughts that blew through halls and souls that blew through people, draughts vented from bellows to thump-wrist, to pound-temples, to pulse-throat, and back to bellows again. Just as they felt that balloon sift down like an autumn rain, so she could feel their souls disinhabit, reinhabit their tremulous nostrils. Each soul, a vast warm finger-print, felt different, she could roil it in her hand like clay;”  
> 

Down one of the many aisles of the Warehouse, Pete’s footsteps stomped with effort harshly on the ground. His feet were sluggish and heavy; they dragged a second behind him as he tried to run forward and through another empty aisle full of stored artifacts. He stomped harder each time hoping to pick up any speed against the invisible traction.

He pushed on, his head whipping back behind him, his eyes wide at something in the distance. He pulled the football he was carrying closer to his chest, his fingers clutching at its worn leather tightly. 

Rounding another corner, he stopped abruptly as he almost crashed into Myka. Myka did not pay his entrance any mind. She stood sideways as she catalogued an artifact, her hands holding a clipboard and pen.

“Myka,” he gasped.

“Yes, Pete,” she murmured as she glanced at something on the shelf and then looked back down to her clipboard.

“I think Ralph Brunsky touched an artifact, he’s a giant now and he’s coming this way, we have to go!”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and smiled. “Pete, Ralph doesn’t work here.” She shook her head and laughed lightly, her curls bouncing. She checked something off with her pen.

“Myka, he is here! We have to go!”

“If you keep this up,” she began as she touched an artifact on the shelf, her hands noticeably free of any protection. “Your mom won’t let you play down here anymore and I’ll have to find a new friend.”

“What?” he gasped, suddenly even more exhausted than before.

There was a rumble behind him and the ground shook causing several artifacts to fall from the shelves and crash to the ground. “You feel that!?”

Finally, Myka turned to face him and he swallowed a scream.

“No, no I don’t,” she replied.

He stumbled back.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Myka…” he trailed off. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her; he couldn’t look away from the horror as much as he wanted too. He wanted to turn away and his body refused to listen.

“Pete?” she asked, half her lips moving around the one word, the other half a black hole for half of Myka’s face was not there anymore. Skin had been torn off revealing bone and an empty socket. Blood congealed around the edges of a sharp ivory cheekbone, it caked itself down the ragged line of where skin hung loosely in the middle of her face. A trickle of red dripped down her chin.

“This isn’t funny,” she remarked. “I’m telling your Mom I shouldn’t play with you.” The last of her words got caught in a gurgle and he knew it was from the blood that dropped down into the crevices of half her skull. She turned back to the shelf and started to read off the clipboard again.

Another rumble came from behind him but louder and closer. More artifacts crashed.

He was frozen to the spot. 

He glanced down when he felt something wet in his hands and saw that he was now holding a slippery, flopping, very much alive fish. He yelped and dropped it to the ground where it flopped three times before going very still.

“It’s dead,” Myka said, not looking. “You killed it.”

“No, I-“

Music carried over to them. Myka turned her head down the other end of the aisle away from him.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

He tilted his head and listened. It was a track of looping circus music. 

“It’s beautiful,” she said as she dropped her clipboard and took a step down the aisle and then another.

“No, Myka, wait! Don’t!”

But it was too late; she was already disappearing down the aisle.

He begged his feet to move, he raged and roared as he pulled at his shins and feet but nothing worked. He was stuck.

A wind blew in from the direction Myka had gone; it curled around the shelves and bypassed him at first. The currents grew stronger as something akin to sand began to scatter in the air around him. 

He coughed once. He coughed again when the strange sandy dust hit the back of his throat. 

His eyes squinted as best he could but straight down the middle of the aisle a wave of sandy dust rolled in and he had to bend down to cover his face.

Another boom blew up behind him and the rumble caused him to fall to the floor. 

The crash had the further effect of whipping the swirling sand to a stop; a crack in the air and it all fell down limply. He took a chance to peek behind his arm. The sand had settled on the ground and the artifacts were covered in what looked like a hundred years worth of dust.

Next, he realized his feet were free due to the small fall and he took off after Myka immediately, bones crunched under his feet as he ran, and sand was kicked up in the air but he paid it no attention.

He turned the corner and found himself in a shiny supermarket. He turned and ran down the aisles, looking for Myka and finding no one. 

In frustration he knocked down a display of cereals.

“That wasn’t nice,” a voice spoke behind him.

He turned around and met the sight of a familiar woman wearing a sundress. In her hands she held a basket as she perused the other side of the aisle. She smiled at him warmly before going back to reading a box of crackers.

“Leena?” he gasped.

“Do you think Artie will eat the healthier crackers if I get them or not?” Leena asked.

“I don’t know.”

“My basket is all empty, someone stole all my goods,” she sighed.

“I’ll help you.”

She shook her head sadly at him. “No, you have to go.”

“Go where?” he asked confused. “We came out to go shopping.”

“No, we didn’t.”

She stepped closer. “You have to go. Now.”

“What?”

Her kind face moved in closer. “Right now.”

“Huh-“

A serious expression morphed her features. “RIGHT NOW. YOU HAVE TO GO, PETE. YOU HAVE TO GO!” With that she shoved him hard and he fell back. “YOU HAVE-“ Her mouth twisted in a horrible way, her words caught, her eyes strained in effort. “G-“ She tried again but she coughed and then only sand poured out her mouth. It continued to pour on and on, down onto her beautiful sundress; it spilled to the floor and built up around her feet. Never-ending.

He tried to scream out but all he was doing was falling back.

 

Pete’s entire body horizontally jumped an inch up in the air on the pull out couch mattress. His back fell down hard on the bed and the springs moaned a squeaky protest.

His eyelids ripped opened as her stared up at the dark ceiling of the motel room. Gasping, he sat up quickly, his hands grabbing his chest where he could feel his heart pounding furiously against his ribcage. He didn’t want to look down because he honestly felt he might see the outline of his heart beating against his t-shirt. 

He refused to blink. He wanted no threat of falling back asleep. The dream, the strange dream was still knocking itself about in his head. His legs felt tired like they had been under a lot of strain and…

“Crap!” he gasped as he felt sand fall out of his hair.

He reached over and turned the lamp on beside him and rubbed the grains of sand between his fingers, under the pressure the specks crumbled into a powdered beige dust.

“What the hell,” he mumbled and then coughed, his throat dry.

Disgusted by the sight he blew the dust off of his hands and then shook his head back and forth.

The dryness in his throat grew and he reached over for the water bottle by the bed and downed it.

His chest still throbbed and his legs ached but he moved himself to the side of the mattress and stood up.

His eyes sought out the other two occupants of the room.

He was afraid to look. 

A vibe, a vibe of such force he’d only ever felt once in his life had sped through him so fast, enough to wake him from his horrible dream.

He faltered his first two steps, his chest palpitations started to slow but the sick feeling in his gut only grew stronger. 

Lunging across the room he flipped the main light switch. The more light only led to a revelation of a living nightmare.

Two empty beds.

Quickly, he forced his body to move towards the window. Pulling back the curtain, he was dismayed to see that no one was sitting in the patio chairs. Despite the time of night, the carnival Ferris Wheel was still lit up, still turning. 

The curtain curled in his fist as he stared out into the darkness and it’s mocking ring of light.

He squinted when he thought he saw something move up in the sky just above the motel. A small blob of some sort, weaving in and out, it’s current taking it towards the carnival. If it was a dark cloud or bird, he could not tell but the idea of it sat strangely in him as it moved upon the air high up.

A sound from the corner of the room caught his attention. His head swiveled around towards the closed bathroom door, he noted the time on the clock 2:32am as he crossed the room.

He knocked once. 

“Myka? Helena?”

He put his ear to the door and the sound of rushing water reached him.

He knocked again. “I’m coming in, so sorry in advance to whoever.”

Instant relief hit him when he found the door wasn’t locked and he was able to freely turn the doorknob.

It was short-lived.

His bad vibe was back ten-fold.

The bathwater was rushing out of the tub’s faucet on full blast. It rushed and rushed, only to pour down towards an open drain. It’s uneven stream splattering across the hard surface of the tub before it trickled down the rusty pipes. It echoed loudly in the small room.

Helena sat on the edge of the tub still fully clothed with her back to him. She was completely still.

“H.G.?”

She did not move.

“H.G.?”

Nothing.

Tentatively, he walked towards her, his hands outstretched in front of him. Stepping up to the head of the bath, he leant over.

“Helena?”

A drape of black silky hair moved a quarter of an inch towards him. The rest of the inch followed after a beat and one raised eyebrow met him. Then two weary eyes blinked. A red puffiness underlined the lost gaze.

Reaching over he turned the water off. The faucet sputtered once or twice, it dripped the last of its dregs and the room was silent.

“Can’t you hear them?” Helena asked, her voice a hoarse whisper.

“Hear who?”

Helena stared straight at the tile wall. “Their screams. His laughter.”

Pete did not have to ask who ‘he’ was.

“The carnival it never stops,” she continued. “It is a sickness that has crawled itself under our skin. It has made it’s home. We are but husks for it’s dwelling.”

“I kind of need you not to lose it on me right now, H.G.” He hovered awkwardly beside her.

“I needed to shut them out. And it was so dry, the air, it…” she trailed off as she looked down at her soaking wet bare feet in the bath. The cuffs of her pants were darkened from the water but she did not appear to mind. 

“People are so silly,” she continued. “Who gave us the right to decisions?”

The awful vibe inside of him twisted and turned inside of his chest, tentacles of hot flashing pain burned from the blood of his heart and outwards. He swallowed, hoping to fight back the bile he felt rising up.

“Helena,” he gasped as his hand faltered and then settled on her shoulder. 

She did not react.

“She could have died,” Helena whispered. “She would have died and I would not have know.”

“No, I would have…we would have told you before it was too late.”

She turned her head slightly up at him. “And what was too late?” She laughed heartlessly. “It is all too late.”

“Stop it,” he demanded. 

“It is a damning thought…”

“What is?”

“To think everyone is better off without you.”

“It is,” he whispered back.

“And all the same you are no better. They are no better.”

His chest ached.

“She’s not dead, H.G., but if you don’t pull it together right now, I don’t know how I can save her without you.”

“What?” she asked, her voice noticeably less dazed, his tone about the present catching her. 

“Myka is gone and I have a really, really bad vibe.”

Helena immediately stood up in the bath; she blinked in confusion twice before a look of shock played across her painful features.

“Gone?”

“I was having a really bad dream, and a vibe, a vibe like only one I’ve felt before railed right through it and I woke up and you both weren’t in your beds. She isn’t outside. And I just have this feeling-“

“That’s impossible,” Helena snapped, life pouring back into her downcast eyes. “She was in bed ten minutes ago when I came in here.”

“Ten minutes?” He reached over and pulled H.G. up out of the tub.

“Get your hands off of me,” she yelled, her hand reaching out and slapping at his chest. 

“Come on! She can’t have gone far then.” He rushed out of the room pulling her arm along.

Once past the threshold of the door Helena ripped her hand out of his and ran to the window to look outside. 

“She’s not there,” she remarked. Her gaze locked with his and he saw a familiar look of steel settle in and he had never been more welcomed to see it.

The Farnsworth by the couch started to go off. Quickly he snatched it up and opened it. “Myka!?”

“No…” Claudia’s startled face met his. That’s when he noticed the other Farnsworth was sitting on the dresser in the corner. He frowned when he saw that Myka’s phone was also sitting beside it.

“What’s wrong?” she asked with worry.

“Myka is gone. So whatever you need to tell me, I need you to tell me fast.”

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Helena frantically pulling her boots on, then yanking the front door open and running out. “Helena! Damn it!”

“Claudia, I need to-“

“I know, dude,” she responded hurriedly, he briefly recognized she was sitting in an all night diner. “Just let me get this out as fast as I can, it may help you. I figured the sooner the better.”

“Ok, go.” He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, trying to keep the nausea at bay, trying to still the urge to run off.

“Just before you went to bed, you had the idea that maybe the artifact is not just the Merry-Go-Round and maybe somehow the book has come to life instead of you going and being stuck in a book like before.”

“Yes, yes, go on.” He mentally groaned at how idiotic he had been to rush out with his theory earlier when Helena and Myka had been finally talking.

Claudia scowled at him for interrupting but didn’t stall her speech. “I don’t think it is a book artifact necessarily.”

“Neither did Myka,” he replied, recalling her icy tone when she began to poke holes in his theory.

“Yah, and not to rub it in but I think she was right. She said for the most part, the carnival was like role playing. It’s not authentic to the tee. Did you know the Dust-Witch is supposed to be a ‘black-nun blind woman’? Like how hard is it to hold auditions?”

“Claudia,” he stressed her name through his clenched teeth. “What is your point?”

“My point,” she began hurriedly. “Is I still honestly don’t know what you are dealing with. But it could be quite possibly that the Merry-Go-Round and whatever is used to operate it, is just working on such a level that it is manifesting its power in other ways.”

“I kind of figured,” he couldn’t help but snap.

She schooled her features. 

“Look, I finally got a hit on some of my research when I was driving. I pulled over at this stop and did a little digging. I found our Jim Williams.”

“And?”

His eyes scanned nervously to the window and back.

“He looks nothing like what you guys described. You know you said sort of like Jon Snow facial hair and curls, handsome, wears black a lot, but instead of knowing nothing, he knows everything.”

“Sure, if that is how you want to put it.” He couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Plus the tattoos and taller…so maybe more of a Johnny Depp vibe, its just H.G. wouldn’t stop talking about his stupid curls, I mean I’m sure he doesn’t look like a sad puppy all the time, more of a slinky trademark smirk Depp style-”

“Claudia!”

“Right! This guy,” she paused as she turned the Farnsworth towards her laptop screen. An image of a tall, lanky, half balding average man looked back at him. “Is one Jim Williams, twenty-nine years old, inherited the family carnival business after his father passed away over a year ago.”

“That doesn’t really look like him.”

“So not the hybrid of hot leading men I was imagining.”

“Claudia!”

“Did I say that out loud?” she asked slightly embarrassed.

“That does not look like him,” he stressed again.

“Nope, but I found a paper trail. He is the owner of Mr. Electro’s carnival, and there is only one. I found some history on it. His father started the business up twenty years ago; it was a sort of old fashioned carnival to begin with, he was inspired by Ray Bradbury’s book, but he wasn’t that successful at it, or very good, it didn’t travel, it had like a limited number of employees, and I mean did you know in the books the Electro character is actually spelt E-l-e-c-t-r-i-c-o-“

“I got it, Claud,” he snapped. “What does it mean?”

His heart started to beat furiously again.

“I’m saying, the family wasn’t very good at the business, it was small time, it was never on a scale this big. They weren’t good at it. They weren’t even good at copying the book. But all of a sudden Jr. inherits the biz and it’s booming.”

“So it’s sketchy? We know. We already know.”

Claudia leant into the screen. “I got a hit on the original Jim Williams because he did order some items online from Ray Bradybury’s estate, but it went through so many buyers, that’s why it took so long. And they didn’t pick up at first because they were of no large sum. They were mostly small personal mundane items. Which we know can be the worst. You need to find this Jim Williams imposter/Mr. Dark and you need to find something small, maybe like a key, a pen, maybe a tool of some kind that he is using to work the Merry-Go-Round. Whatever item he has that once belonged to Mr. Bradbury is what has manipulated the carousel into becoming an artifact and is no doubt messing with you. Do you understand?”

“It still sounds like guess work,” he huffed out; the strain in his chest was no lighter. “A Jim Williams who may or may not be real. I can tell you just because the other characters don’t match up to a tee with the carnival’s employees doesn’t make me feel any better, the Mr. Dark we’ve met is the real deal. He is terrifying.”

“It’s better then no guess work, so take my existing guess work, go find this Jim Williams imposter or not, slap him with a warrant or handcuff him with no jurisdiction to his messed up Merry-Go-Round, drown him in goo, I don’t care, and get Myka, Helena and yourself out of there safe and sound.”

He nodded.

“I’m coming with back up. I’m trying to compile a full list of the items from that particular sale as we speak. Take care, Pete,” she added with a rushed breath and hung up.

He pocketed the Farnsworth, grabbed his service gun and tesla and rushed for the door that was still half open. He burst through, only to hear footsteps coming up behind him, fast.

A determined Helena pulled to a stop beside him. “She’s not at the diner, nobody is, not even the cook. It’s twenty four hours.”

“The car?” he asked.

Helena shook her head. “She took it.”

He frowned as he looked across the way where he could see the Ferris Wheel. It suddenly felt farther than it had felt during their entire stay.

“What do we-?”

“We run,” Helena finished, her steely gaze directed on something past him as she took off.

And suddenly, he didn’t need any more of a prompt. 

And unlike his dream, his feet were not sluggish; his tread was not heavy, for he had a growing fire in his gut. A fire that blazed through and burned the horrible feeling inside of him, it travelled up inside of him as he exhaled.

A fire that burned the dust. 

 

The two of them had arrived at the outskirts of the carnival’s gates without stopping a moment in their pursuit. A few times Pete’s vibe had rolled through him and almost keeled him right over but all he had to do was focus on Helena in front of him, her run never faltering and he kept going.

The fire in him had started to die down the closer they got but he refused to give in.

Helena’s feet were just about to carry her over the threshold.

“H.G., wait!” he bellowed. His feet slammed harder against the earth and he jolted forward, his hands reaching out to grab her around the waist.

“Stop.”

“No,” Helena roared as she flailed in his arms.

He tried to ignore the elbow to his face, even as his nose stung with sharp pain.

“We need a plan,” he said as he let her go.

Her heartless laugh made a reappearance and he flinched. “A fool’s plan,” she snapped. “There is no plan but to destroy this Mr. Dark and burn this cursed place to the ground. We are saving Myka.” 

“Lets save arson for Plan C at the moment.”

“I am not over exaggerating.” Her lips were in a firm line of determination. 

“I know,” he replied as he held his hands up. “But I am thinking about Myka.”

Helena clenched and unclenched her fists. “And you think I am not?!”

“Stop! We need to stay together if we have any hope-“

“Then quit stalling!”

“I’m not stalling,” he yelled back. “We cannot destroy Mr. Dark on sight. What if something has already happened to Myka and we need to rev–“

“You think she wants to make a deal with the devil?” Helena asked in disbelief. Her glare was full on accusation. 

“I don’t think Myka was taken, I do think she came here of her own fr-“

“I swear, Peter, if you are about to finish that sentence, you will not like it. The idea that any of us are in full capacity of our free will while this hell above ground is operating is laughable.”

“I know,” he stressed. “My wording was poor but what if…” he trailed off, his eyes looking away.

“You think she’s going to use the carousel?” Helena’s voice held a strange calm to it as she concluded his thought.

He locked eyes with her. “Maybe,” he replied, giving voice to his fear.

“Why would she…” Helena paused; he could see the thoughts racing as her eyes moved back and forth. “Give me your service pistol,” she suddenly demanded.

“I liked it better when you were talking about arson.” He pulled his tesla from behind his back and held it in the air between them. “I take it you left your sparky tesla behind.”

“There was no time,” she muttered.

“Take mine.”

She did not move. “That is not what I asked for.”

“I know, but remember how you just said that little bit about our free will being off-kilter. I’m assuming the gun bit was an example of that.”

He continued to dangle the tesla in the air between them, undeterred by her glare.

“You don’t like guns, Helena. You also like it even less when you get all vengeful.”

“Do not speak for me.”

“Alright, put it this way, you don’t want someone else’s blood on your hands do you?” he snapped.

He supposed he expected more of a reaction but Helena did not blanch at the low dig, she did not flinch, a flutter of eyelashes did not snap down and up. Her face remained like a steel mask but slowly her hand reached up and she grasped the tesla and she began to fiddle with the settings.

“I think Mr. Dark’s blood spilling out would be a very fine want.”

“Yah, but just think about his body coursing with volts of electricity and hey, maybe you can make him do a dance of some kind. A very embarrassing, soil his pants kind of dance,” he offered.

She blinked once at him. 

“Remember, therapy, new coping mechanisms,” he continued.

“What did Claudia say?” she asked abruptly.

He breathed a sigh of small relief. He was just as anxious to find Myka and get the hell out of dodge, but he took it as a small victory getting Helena to work with him.

“That Mr. Dark may or may not be the real Jim Williams, and that the real Jim Williams did buy some items from Ray Bradbury’s estate, so the carousel may or may not be the artifact, it might not be bifurcated. It may-“

“That is a lot of mays.”

“Yes.”

“So no plan then,” she remarked, her eyes still drawn to the tesla as her fingers moved over its surface. 

“Well when you put it that way.”

“We are wasting time.”

“Fine, hear me out, the plan is, we are a team and as a team we are going to kick major ass and win.”

She finally looked back up at him. “That is a plan I can get on board with.”

“Good.”

He stepped up closer to Mr. Electro’s sign, no one else was around, and yet looping circus music could be heard in the distance. The place still felt alive. The Ferris Wheel still turned and the sign above them buzzed loudly.

It was the definition of ominous. Pete was pretty sure any description in the dictionary had been replaced with what was before him. But at least as they crossed over onto the grounds no demons from hell burst from the earth below to drag them down any further.

Perhaps, walking into hell, one indeed had to be keen in the first place. 

 

No one had been at the gate to stop them. The carnival was welcoming them with open arms, a warm tempting breeze curled in the air back and forth like the tips of a paintbrush, a wind coated in sugary sweetness swept across Pete’s face. It tickled. 

Helena’s breathing, however, became more labored beside him.

“Somehow, impossibly,” she began, her words stalling for a moment. “There are less people here and this place is still as suffocating.” 

And the sweetness in the air turned sour.

“It cannot possibly be just the carousel having this effect.” Her words were made to be a statement but he sensed the unanswered question and he could not fill the void.

He scanned the grounds continuously. His eyes always going back and catching with Helena’s before he did another round.

“There may not be crowds of people here but why is everything still open? Why are the rides still going even though no one is on them?” he asked as he gazed up at the rides flowing through the air, suspiciously quiet now that no occupants were inside them screaming. They moved back and forth like ghosts were having their fun for the evening.

Helena locked her gaze with his and they both said the same thing.

“Trap.” “Trap.”

“Let the fun begin then,” he said as they made their way down the silent alley of cheap merchandise stalls and past the Dust-Witch’s tent.

“Wait,” Helena whispered as she came to a full stop and her head turned to the left. “Do you hear that?”

He stopped and strained his ears to listen. At first all he could catch was the strange wind that came and went on a current that he imagined had nothing to with nature. But then there it was.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

“What…?”

“This way,” Helena replied, as she turned down a corner.

Together they stealthily maneuvered between the rides and various abandon food carts. Pete never let his eyes still in their observation. His vibe had lessened, the warning already in place but his body still hummed with apprehension.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Again and again the sound repeated, a brief pause always after a pattern of three.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

The closer they got the louder the thumps echoed.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

It sounded like something harshly hitting wood over and over again.

They rounded the corner that led onto the main games alley and Pete found he was not prepared for the scenario he saw before him. How was it that something so ordinary could be utterly frightening?

One lone man stood at one particular game stall. 

Playing. Over and over. 

“That’s the Police Chief isn’t it?” Helena voiced quietly, a trickle of concern slipping past her steel.

“It is,” he murmured, his gaze never shifting away from the man.

“What is he doing?”

Thump. Thump. Thump. It began again.

Every time the Police Chief reached into the bucket on the ledge of the stall, the noise paused, his hands grasping a new baseball to throw towards the back of the stall. One. Two. Three.

Three chances. Over and over.

Helena charged her tesla gun and held it in front of her. Pete nodded at her once as he took his gun out and held it low to the ground as they approached the man.

“Hello,” Helena offered tentatively when they were three feet away.

The Police Chief turned to look at them, or more appropriately, he looked right through them. The pupils of his eyes were enlarged and a strange silver color, the iris in each eye almost completely absorbed by a large silver coin.

The Police Chief blinked dumbly once before picking up another three balls from a bucket that was never-ending.

“Sir,” Helena tried again.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The balls missed the pins lined up in a row, each one sailing past just by a centimeter before it hit the wood wall of the back of the stall. 

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The balls disappeared into a shadowed darkness behind the mocking silent pins.

Helena stepped back. “How long do you think he’s been doing this?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” Pete replied. His eyes taking in the man’s darkened skin that was blistering from the sun, his chapped lips that spoke of dehydration, and the dried blood and calluses that caked his hands. How many times did stitched leather have to rub against the skin of his palms to cause such destruction?

Pete stepped closer but a sudden stench rolled off the focused man and he reached up to cover his nose and mouth. It was a smell of dried urine that infiltrated his nostrils and hit the back of his throat. He swallowed down hoping to still the gag he felt coming.

“Hey!” Pete yelled as he waved his other hand up in front of the man’s face.

Nothing. He simply threw around him. Each time he continued to miss.

“It is no use,” Helena spoke up. “If we have any hope of saving him, of saving anyone, we need to find the artifact source. We need to find Myka.”

“We can’t just leave him like this.” 

“Pete,” she stressed.

“I know, I know,” he replied as he stepped back. He at least needed to have the words there, held up in the air briefly, but he knew she was right.

The sound of children laughing beckoned down the alley like a sinister wind chime warning of an incoming storm.

“Could this be anymore clichéd?” he hissed.

“Clichés are clichés for a reason sometimes, remember.” Helena arched her eyebrow at him. “Does it mean you are less frightened?”

“Hell no.”

Half a smirk played at her lips before her eyes hardened and focused down the alley.

With his gun still in front he began to walk forward.

The thumping sound continued behind them. He tried to block it out.

“Wait,” Helena whispered.

He turned around as he watched her lower the setting on his tesla before she fired once at the Police Chief. Blue light shook his body and he crumbled to the ground. Pete held his breath as Helena knelt beside the man and checked his pulse. She nodded at Pete once before standing up and joining him.

Silence.

“I don’t know how long that will keep him down, but he can rest for now.“

“It was good thinking,” he replied. “I think I’m going to have to start calling you Sparky.”

Helena frowned at him. “What?” he exclaimed. “It’ll be your thing, just like giant forks of mass destruction.”

She breezed past him.

“What?” he whispered after her. “Those are both pretty original things. Not everyone gets to be so original.”

“Come on,” she whispered back, her tone soft despite the hardness of her face.

Because jokes were not always a self-defense mechanism, but they sure helped keep the nausea and urge to vomit down.

He nodded and fell into to step.

 

Just as they were about to exit the alley, flashing lights, zinging bursts of sounds and sharp whistles blared to life and Pete jumped.

“Crap!” He held his gun up in the direction they originated from. All that met his gaze was an empty booth where miniature two-dimensional horses moved along a track. No one was seated playing the game and yet water squirted from the guns in front of each seat and pushed the horses on in their race of chance. A bell rang when one horse crossed the finish line.

“Lets get out of here,” Pete stammered as he pulled H.G. around the corner. “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions but I can safely say carnivals are something I never want to experience again after this.”

“Understandable,” Helena said with her eyes scanning the rides scattered around them. 

The sound of children whispering and laughing passed over them again.

“Hey! Look there!” Pete called, his eyes spotting two teenagers, a boy and a girl trying to break into a small makeshift shed.

He motioned to Helena to circle around as he slowly approached from the other direction with his gun up.

The boy and girl had yet to notice him.

“Brandon and Stacey turn around and put your hands up slowly where I can see them.”

Brandon dropped the lock he had been trying to open and Stacey’s back straightened. Slowly the two of them turned around with their hands up, a look of surprise on their young faces.

“How…how do you know our names?” Brandon asked.

“We didn’t…we didn’t do anything,” Stacey desperately cried. “Please, you’ve got to helps us.”

Pete frowned. “Help you?”

“Be quiet, Stace,” Brandon hissed. “He’ll hear you.”

Before Pete could respond a percussion of colorful explosions took to the sky right behind the shed. Hissing spurts of red, yellow and blue roared practically right over them and Pete had to bend over and cover his ears.

Brandon and Stacey took off with two identical looks of horror.

“Wait!” he yelled after them.

He stepped to follow but a very blinding bright blast of an almost white yellow burned his eyes and he had to wait for the show to pass. He stumbled off to the side and cowered by the shed. Helena slid up beside him.

The fireworks started to die off, the pops less enthusiastic and after a moment the night was dark and still again.

“We are being toyed with,” Helena remarked with trademark anger. “Stupid chemical combustions of annoyance.”

Her head suddenly snapped up, her eyes wide. “Myka,” she whispered.

“What?” he asked. “I’m not following you.”

“We need to find where they were coming from.” She stood up.

“What, why? I don’t think they were coming from anywhere. They weren’t logical-“

“Fine, as close as we can guess,” she snapped. “Myka, before, she couldn’t stop looking at the fireworks, it was like they were a hypnotic draw.”

“All right,” Pete agreed. “I think most of them when they weren’t trying to blow the skin off of our faces were just behind this alley.”

A short jog and they found themselves at the base of the Ferris Wheel. 

“Was it maybe here?” Pete asked. They both spun around in a circle.

He spotted a tall figure moving on the other side of the ride, their long stride taking them to the far off corner where he knew the carousel stood. Familiar curls bounced atop the retreating person’s head.

“Myka!” he yelled and started to run.

Quickly he raced around the ride, his eyes never moving from his partner across the way. Footsteps echoed behind him as Helena caught on.

“Myka!”

The taller woman started, her knees jerked and stalled, her hands twitched in the air as she turned half way to face him in surprise.

“Pete?”

“Myka, thank god,” he exhaled as he caught up to her, his hands reaching out to grasp her arms.

Green eyes looked at him in confusion.

“Pete? What…” she trailed off.

Her eyes darted off towards the distance; he noticed a daze of some kind rolled over her now and then. She was preoccupied.

“I have to go,” she whispered and pulled her arms out of his grasp.

“No, Myka,” he cried as he held onto her. 

“Myka,” Helena’s quiet voice spoke up from behind him. “Are you all right?”

Clear green eyes blinked at the woman behind him and lips curled into a sudden snarl. Myka violently pulled herself away from him.

“You don’t understand!”

“Myka, Myka,” he repeated calmly as he raised the palms of his hands up and stepped back a little. “Help us, help us understand. Let us help you.”

A brutal cold-blooded shatter of laughter fell from her lips like broken shards of glass. Her features twisted like a feral animal. Fury splintered across her face in a blink of an eye, angry sparks of forked lightening that carried a trail from heated eyes, to upturned nose and down to the slash of her mouth. He did not recognize his partner.

“Help me?” she laughed sarcastically, her tongue flickering between white teeth that snapped opened and close with a stormy hunger. “Because you always do such a good job at that.”

Her words dug deep down but he told himself that this wasn’t his Myka, this wasn’t the Myka who had his back no matter what, and this wasn’t the Myka who was full of care and love.

The merciless cackle flowed again and he flinched.

“Myka, whatever you are mad about, it’s fine, it’s fine, we will work it out, just come back with us.”

“Please,” Helena’s soft voice broke through their space. Myka’s eyes flickered again past him before settling back.

“I can’t,” she replied less heated.

“Why?” he asked desperately. “Please, please don’t do this.”

Her eyes flickered like a slow building flame but he could see a question dance behind the heat.

“Do what?”

“Don’t make a deal with Mr. Dark, don’t use the Merry-Go-Round, everything that’s happened, I know it’s been hard but please, you won’t solve things by becoming younger.”

It took her a beat to absorb what he had said and then she laughed again, less cutting but there was a cruel unkindness to it. He was missing the joke.

“Become younger?” she echoed and laughed. “Poor Pete,” she began to mock, her head tilting to the side, her eyes opening wide as a sly smile stretched and stretched. It was of the dark variety. “Poor Pete, he finds he hears a few facts and he’s got the story all laid out. Always so limited. But it’s good enough, he makes his due.”

It hurt. He could not deny it.

“Stop it, Myka. You do not mean what you say,” Helena’s voice spoke up. Pete looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

Glass shattered again.

“Oh, please do tell me what I mean and do not mean from the sayer of such known truths,” she laughed at Helena.

“I know that I have hurt you, but this is no reason to put your life at risk.” Helena’s words were not said they were begged.

“Life,” Myka spat. “Risk comes and goes, we do not get a choice.”

“You can choose now.” Helena replied. “Please, Myka, come back with us.”

“Us?” she hissed. “And what shall I call us. Who are you even really?”

Helena winced.

“What do I call you? Are you the scheming liar with her hidden agenda? Are you the repented haunting specter? Are you the time-travelling author, warehouse agent extraordinaire? Or I know, are you the suburban housewife with her packed lunches? Is it Emily then? Emily Lake-“

“That’s enough,” Pete yelled as he stepped between them and once again held onto Myka’s arms but now it was like holding down a flailing animal, froth was spitting from her lips. He pushed her back.

He did not look behind him; he had already seen the wounds play themselves across the twist of Helena’s features. She had instantly recoiled.

Myka laughed heartlessly in his arms. “Have I said too much or none at all?”

“We are going,” he demanded.

“But I thought I was to use the Merry-Go-Round,” she mocked. “To become younger, wasn’t that what you said?”

“Why am I wrong? Why did you come then?”

“You don’t get it.”

Ire painted her lips red as she continued to spit at him.

“Why would I want to become younger?” she asked. “I’d still be me, I’d still have all my memories, all the endless catalogues of perfect photographs of adult horror to recall, my mind would not change age. You never bothered to see what the catch was in the story did you.”

He pulled his head back as he looked at her with worry.

“Why would I ever want that? So I can remember, so I can sit and wait and wonder when the cancer will form, when the cells in my body will choose to multiple if I start getting older again? We don’t even know how long it was there, was it a year ago, was it farther, how far back does it go? I will not go through that again. Is that what you think?”

“No,” he whispered. “Myka…I just want you to be okay, please.”

Her fiery eyes looked him dead on. “Perhaps you ask too much of me.”

“I think,” a sinister voice began from behind them. “I think he has no right to ask of anything from my Queen.”

There was a flurry of swear words sitting on Pete’s tongue but he had no chance to reply for a crippling pain shot through his body and he let Myka go as he crumbled to the ground in agony. 

Myka stepped back suddenly; there was a look of worry before it was swept away by the raging animal. 

A groan beside him echoed his and he turned his head to see that Helena was collapsed to the ground as well.

Mr. Dark stepped between them, the black fabric of his coattails floating just above the ground. He smiled down at Pete as he went, his hands clenched in tight fists but he still gave a little wave with one.

“Are they upsetting you?” Mr. Dark purred beside Myka’s ears.

Pete took a small amount of satisfaction when Myka pulled away from the man and did not reply, but then a haze came over her eyes and she swayed on the spot. Mr. Dark smiled. Pete felt sick.

“You bastard,” Pete cursed.

“Now, now,” Mr. Dark cooed. “Be nice now and maybe I will make the pain stop.”

“What?”

Mr. Dark slowly uncurled his fists and somehow as each finger pulled back, Pete felt the pain ease. 

It wasn’t until the man’s palms were fully facing them that Pete felt the pain completely disappear.

His breath, however, his breath still caught in fear.

For the lines of Mr. Dark’s palms were not bare, the skin was marked on each one with a brand new tattoo. 

In his left palm an incredibly detailed tattoo of Helena’s face looked down on them.

And on the right…

Pete saw himself mirrored back on the devil himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to give a shout out to crazycat9449 who made an amazing manip over on tumblr inspired by this story.


	10. Chapter 10

>   
>  “Far away, in the meadow, shadows flickered in the Mirror's Maze, as if parts of someone's life, yet unborn, were trapped there, waiting to be lived.”  
> 

“No, not the Devil, Mr. Lattimer,” Mr. Dark said. “You give me far too much credit.”

Hellish lips curved up at Pete and he felt their sharp edges across the distance, the dimples that somehow poked out and carved themselves into his skin in a pattern of two pinpricks. 

“Screw you,” Pete spat as he felt the hot sharp pain.

His hands clutched his stomach and he was still sprawled out on the ground. Crunching painful spasms shook through his body. Even though the extreme blinding agony had started to pass now that Mr. Dark wasn’t clenching the hand with his tattooed face on it, he felt like his body was still trying to put itself back together.

“Do you like my new ink?”

Neither Helena nor he replied. Myka swayed in the background.

“I said,” Mr. Dark crooned as he stepped closer and took one finger and dug it into Pete’s tattooed face.

“Ahhhhhh!” Pete screamed as he felt a scratch down his face.

“Do you like my new ink?” Mr. Dark seethed.

“Cut your nails,” Pete spat back.

“Your strength, I must say, is a surprise to me. You have no idea how much of an imprint you left on your first day, Mr. Lattimer. I thought for sure the one day would be all it took.”

“Took for what?”

“Why, how long it would take to have your soul completely in the palm of my hand.”

Mr. Dark skipped beside him; his coattails smacked Pete in the head. 

“Was that too on the nose?” he laughed as he bent down and met Pete’s gaze.

Helena who had been noticeably silent started to get back up but Mr. Dark kicked behind him as he still smiled at Pete and she was knocked back down.

“Her too.” His top hat tilted back. “I thought for sure, for sure mid-day of the second day.”

He dramatically flew his arms away from his body. “But here we are.”

“Bastard,” Helena snarled, her head was still down as she started to get on her knees. Her arms wobbled as she tried to support herself and she did not move any further.

Laughter like rocks rolling in a steel can passed the shadowy curtain of Mr. Dark’s mouth.

“How?” Pete gasped at him.

“What’s that?” Mr. Dark asked as he bent down and put his hand over his ear.

Pete looked up and glared at him. “The tattoos, how? We didn’t make a deal with you.”

“That you know of,” Mr. Dark replied. His dark eyebrows slithered on his face up and down. 

With a flourished action, he swept his jacket back and knelt down beside Pete.

He fought the urge to look away when he could see his tattooed face up close. It was eerie. Simple ink black lines somehow represented the exact details of his face. His eyes blinked back at him from the skin canvas and Pete jerked back.

“I’ll tell you a little secret,” Mr. Dark continued. “The tattoos of you and Ms. Wells here, well they aren’t finished. They are just a blueprint. The outline if you like. Where is the color, I say! The red, the yellow, the blue! The hue of the rest of your soul has yet to fill it out.”

Mr. Dark pulled on Pete’s hair and yanked his head back. Pete gasped but found the previous attack had left him ill equipped to fight. The nerve endings of his body refused to listen to his brain like they had been fried out.

“I want that painted blood inside of you that splatters itself across your spirit. Deep inside, I want those swatches of color, the dye of your choices and the shade of your essence.”

“Something tells me, someone should have gotten you a gift card to the Arts and Crafts store a long time ago,” Pete forced through his tensed jaw.

Mr. Dark let him go and stood up. “Jokes will not save you.”

“Oh, bugger off,” Helena huffed. She was on all fours but it was obvious the effort it took for her to raise her head up and glare at their tormenter, even if it was but an inch. “I think someone just didn’t get into theater school and has been upset ever since.”

“Good one,” Pete coughed with a laugh as he nodded at her.

The smile on Mr. Dark’s face thinned. Without a word he clenched both fists again and Pete felt like his bones were being turned to mush.

With a cry he fell face first back into the ground. Helena groaned beside him.

“Stop!” Myka’s voice called out in the night around them.

The pain immediately came to a halt but like before a pop and crunch still lingered, his body still, as though it had been flattened and not folded up right.

He fought through his suffering and looked up.

Mr. Dark was half-turned towards Myka, a look of open surprise playing itself across his face.

“Myka, my dear.” His hands were open, flat and held out in front of him.

The frenzy beast of Myka’s fury was now directed at the man. Her eyes were clear and narrowed. 

“Stop hurting them,” she seethed through her teeth. Fists curled at her side and it did not seem to hurt anyone but herself.

“Of course, whatever you want,” Mr. Dark continued his false apologetic tone, his head bent low as he stepped towards her slowly.

But the heat in Myka wanted to burn brighter, her eyes danced with a sudden want, a sudden need and she stepped closer first and Mr. Dark stopped his gait. 

And for a brief second Pete thought he saw fear in the other man’s eyes.

The confrontation that was about to happen was interrupted when a swooping wind filled with grains of dust blew around them.

Pete was forced to close his eyes.

It only lasted a few seconds and he felt the air clear.

Opening his eyes, he was surprised to see Myka lying on the ground at the far end of the alley.

“Gently,” Mr. Dark hissed to his right, where the Dust-Witch approached, her hands outstretched in the air towards Myka. “You were too harsh.”

Myka did not get up.

“Myka,” Helena whispered. Her body was still twisted together but angry eyes stared ahead.

“You play too close to the knife’s edge,” the Witch hissed, her gold veil shimmering back and forth.

“Your tongue has become too comfortable around me,” Mr. Dark snapped at her.

The Dust-Witch cowered slightly.

“Ew,” Pete muttered.

The next thing he saw was Mr. Dark’s black boot kicking his chin up and he landed on his back.

“I believe, that would be an ‘Ow’ now,” the man laughed.

Pete groaned and rubbed his sore jaw. He lacked the strength to get up.

Mr. Dark and the Dust-Witch peered over him.

“You are really dragging out this whole killing us thing?” Pete muttered.

“Why would I want to kill you?” Mr. Dark asked, honestly perplexed.

Pete closed his eyes. “Because that’s what you bad guys do.”

“Maybe, I’m not the bad guy.”

Pete opened his eyes. “Where is the real Jim Williams? How are you doing all this?”

A loud laugh boomed out of the man’s mouth.

“You kill him too?”

“You aren’t listening,” Mr. Dark replied. “I have no use for you if you are dead. If you are dead how can you become part of the family?”

“One of us,” the Dust-Witch hissed.

“What?” Pete asked in confusion. “I don’t want your stupid carousel ride, I don’t want any part-“

“Who said anything about the carousel?” Mr. Dark mocked. “Do you think I am lacking in need of a son? Poor fool. My carnival is so much more than just the carousel and the spin of youth. I am so much more.”

The flickering void in his eyes turned to the Dust-Witch.

“She is so much more.”

“One of us,” she hissed again.

“If you are dead, how am I to use your pain, your wants, your secret truths for my gain?”

His smile stretched the widest Pete had ever seen, he was sure all he would see was a dark empty never-ending hole as the curtain was drawn back but indeed, pristine white teeth chomped at the air.

“That’s the fuel, the vapor that spins the carousel, the raw stuffs of terror, the excruciating agony of guilt, the scream for real or imagined wounds. The carnival sucks that gas, ignites it, and chugs along its way,” Mr. Dark screamed with glee.

Pete felt a chill down his back.

“I need you,” Mr. Dark continued. “Together we can make this carnival even more powerful. You shall join us. We will all travel together.”

“One of us.”

Dry blonde hair creeped out of the shimmering veil and Pete focused his eyes, his brain filtering everything before him.

“Melissa?” he asked in a whispered awe. “Melissa Freeze?”

The Dust-Witch froze. It wasn’t until another cackle boomed from the demon like man beside them that she twitched back to life.

“Close,” Mr. Dark practically hummed. “My Dust-Witch is some other lost soul I picked up some time ago. As I said, I can’t have my carnival lacking, it needs attractions that fuel and pick apart the spectrum of emotional oil.”

“You’re a monster,” Helena spoke up, her voice gasping between words.

Mr. Dark glared at her over his shoulder. “You’ll come to see it my way.”

His top hat swiveled in the air as he turned back to look over Pete. “You have already met Melissa though.”

Pete tried to think back.

“Although, she does go by ‘Mel and Lisa the Wonder Twins’ now,” he laughed. “You were so very rude to her when you were trying to save her all the same.”

“No,” Pete gasped. He tried to sit up but everything in his body screamed against the action.

“I thought it was pretty brilliant,” Mr. Dark continued. “Melissa Freeze, a young woman filled with indecision. I could feel it the moment she stepped on the grounds. Despite all the distractions of fun, her brain was going a mile a minute. Should she move towns to live with her boyfriend? Should she change schools? Her parents felt she was settling, they wanted her to have more experiences? Should she travel? Just constantly being pulled in two directions. If only there were two of her?”

His laugh was a crescendo. 

“You will pay for this,” Helena’s steel like voice threatened, she was getting some of her strength back. “All of this.”

“Hmmmm,” he replied, his eyes rolling with a look of mirth. “You’ll both have to fight for your souls first and then we will see.”

“Screw you!” Pete spat again.

“You don’t want to leave Myka all alone, do you?” Mr. Dark batted his eyelashes. “Don’t you want to join her, here?”

“You can’t have her!” Helena yelled.

Mr. Dark turned and glared at her, the first real look of anger twitching the lines of his face. He didn’t look so handsome anymore.

“Dust-Witch,” he commanded as he started to walk away. “Do it now.”

Dry hands moved in the air above Pete and he felt the strong dusty wind swirl to life above him. His arms moved up to protect his face. The wind moved all around him, he could swear he could feel it under his back.

For how long it lasted, he could not say. When the wind finally died down and the dusty sand sat limply on his skin, he opened his eyes and only saw darkness.

 

His body still felt weak but at least the horrible seizing pain was somehow a far away dream. Lying flat on his back he raised his arms up above him, the two of them pale shadows in the dark. It took a series of slow movements for him to roll over and sit up on his knees.

Blinking furiously in the darkness did not lead to some miraculous gift of sight.

It was quiet too. Too quiet. Silence was his only neighbor.

“He-“ he sputtered as he coughed, dry bits of sand falling out of his mouth. He cleared his throat. “Hello.”

“Hello!” he tried again. “Anyone there?”

“Wherever this is,” he mumbled himself.

“Pete?” A muffled voice called from the distance.

“H.G!”

“Yes,” her far away voice called.

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know, you?”

“No idea,” he replied.

Shadows covered him like an over-scratchy sweater, darkness and sand coating his skin uncomfortably.

“Myka?” he tried.

Nothing.

“She’s not here,” Helena’s stilted voice called again.

The sound of fabric billowing in the air broke through the space, like a curtain being whipped back. Next, a crack was heard and then the sizzle of a flame and then light shone all around him from high up above. It was limited, it’s luminosity picking and choosing where it dwelled, only tiny tendrils of light scurried off in the distance around him.

It’s radiance reflected in the circle of mirrors that were revealed to surround him. He looked up but couldn’t pin point where the flickering light was coming from.

He stood up and twenty Pete’s looked back at him.

“H.G?” he called out.

“Still here.”

“You wouldn’t happen to be surrounded by a bunch of mirrors too?”

“Indeed.”

“Great,” he huffed. “A freakin’ Mirror Maze.”

“I assume this is supposed to be another awaiting horror of some kind,” she called back.

“No, no,” he replied sarcastically. “I’m sure the worst we’ll be seeing is a bad hair day reflected back.”

“I never have a bad hair day,” her deadpanning voice replied.

He laughed and nodded. “True.” 

“Any idea on where the exit would be?” she asked.

“Not a clue.”

He spun around and the multiple Petes did as well. There was a dark space he spotted in between two of the Petes, and with careful steps he approached.

“I think I found a corridor,” he called out.

“Where’s it go?”

“I don’t know.”

He shifted through the space and found it lead to a corridor lined with more mirrors.

“I believe it would be the maze part of this attraction.”

“I can’t find such a break off,” Helena replied.

“Keep talking, I’ll come to you.”

Helena laughed and it sounded far too hollow.

“I’m sure Mr. Dark and his cohorts have already made it so that won’t be possible.”

“Hey!” he snapped. “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk right now.”

She was silent for a moment before she spoke again. “You should find the exit.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I am not attempting to be brave,” she replied. “Far from it. I am being realistic. We cannot waste time.”

“You are being a real downer right now, remember you’re supposed to be an optimist.”

“I don’t think I am supposed to be much of anything anymore,” her voice was suddenly weak. 

“How am I supposed to leave you, believing you will take care of yourself, if you continue to talk like that?”

There was another moment of silence.

“I apologize. I shall do better.”

“Good.”

His feet shuffled forward down the narrowly light passage way, his doubles watching as he went. He turned down another corridor and continued. As he went he noticed some of the mirrors were warped and altered his appearance as he stepped by. Fat Petes, tall Petes, and melting faced Petes. 

“We still need to find Myka,” he called out when Helena had yet to speak up.

“I apologized,” she replied, her tone was stronger but her voice sounded farther away. 

His only option of moving was taking him away from her.

Another turn and he was presented with two potential mirrored pathways. 

“You’re going to get out, right, H.G!? I can trust you.”

He thought that maybe he had already gone too far when he couldn’t hear her reply.

“Of course,” her suddenly cocky voice travelled like a floating a whisper towards him. “I am an inventor, I shall just have to invent a way to walk through an abundance of thick glassed mirrored walls.”

She was surprisingly not coming across sarcastic.

“That is what I like to hear!”

“Go and save Myka. I shall be right behind you.”

“You better! Or she will never forgive me.”

He stepped down the right corridor.

“And I’ll never forgive myself,” he whispered.

Down a particularly dim alley of mirrors he went, the mysterious light was but a low glow on his path. The mirrored walls looked like a flurry of shadows waiting to converge onto him.

He hadn’t realized it but he was breathing deeper. It was the type of labored breath that spoke of perceived fear but ignored it all the same. His lungs pulled and pushed, his throat constricted but his feet still carried him on and he refused to look behind him. He refused to swat at the strange tickle he felt at the back of his neck.

He kept moving forward in the faltering darkness.

It didn’t stop the feeling of being watched, hundreds of eyes blinking back at him and always following. How could they feel like the eyes of a stranger?

Another turn and he was presented with three possible ways to go. 

Something turned in his gut, a feeling, a suggestion of taking the second turn, but was it just false instinct, was it the fear spilling and splashing around inside of him, was he simply going to walk further into the pit?

He took the second option anyways.

A few steps in and the light flared to life around him, the images reflected back to him in the mirrors that much stronger and clearer.

Another fork in the road presented itself. 

He chose the left but after a few minutes he realized the route was taking him back into the center of wherever he had come from. He turned back and chose the right and felt sure he was going in the correct direction.

His brightly lit doubles stood waiting for him in the silence.

His walk was steady and calm, for a moment he thought of running but when he accidentally walked into one of the mirrored panels due to a trick of the light, he knew it was best not to rush. The anxiety, the pulsing fear that raised his hackles wished him to push harder but he quelled the urge.

The light was getting brighter on the pathways he was choosing, like the Mirror Maze was rewarding him.

And because of that, he should have caught on sooner to what was happening around him.

It had slipped his notice.

It’s the little things that slip by at first.

His fear was an insulated blanket, pulling the wool over his eyes.

It was the foreign smirk that finally caught his eye. A deceiving cut in the glass.

Pete’s eyes flickered towards the mirrors on the left, his brow furrowing when he caught the differences. His reflection stood at the same height as him, the same weight, and the same spot. Nothing was different there. The hair sat on his head in the same way and his hands shifted in a matching fashion when he lifted them up. 

It was all written in the face the change. 

A dark smirk was drawn across his mouth. His eyes were narrowed and cold looking. A stranger looked back at him. A stranger who wore his skin all the same.

He stumbled back and turned to the right and was met with a different copy, a different thief.

This one wore his skin haggardly, his cheeks sunken, and his skin was paler. Hands did not match his as they shook with a tremor. Despair blinked back at him.

His breath caught. Turning away he looked down at the ground and shook his head back and forth.

“You can do this,” he whispered. “You got this. No more tricks.”

One step, then another and the pattern repeated as he walked forward and away, his eyes on the ground.

The light suddenly went out and he was thrown back into darkness.

“Great,” he huffed out.

Hands reached up around him and the touch of cool glass met his fingertips on either side of him, the corridor had started to turn in, the route narrowing. He shuffled forward, his arms having to bend as his way got smaller and smaller on either side.

Like a camera flash, light blinked right before him and it hovered powerfully in the air above.

He looked forward and wished he had not.

He closed his eyes and took two deep breaths before he opened them again and met his match.

One lone mirror, taller and wider than any before, stood at the end right in front of him. It hovered in the heavy darkness. Black an endless frame around the dead end.

The surface shimmered like a rippling pond. The image behind it moving freely, it was not beholden to his actions.

A different Pete stood in the depths of the mirror, a Pete both harrowingly familiar and a distant memory.

There was a harshness to Mirror Pete’s mouth, the lips crumbled downward in a sad mashing of a frown, but the defiant tilt of his chin spoke of a rumbling anger below the surface.

His eyes were cold and bloodshot, but still a challenge sat in them.

Unshaven stubble lined Mirror Pete’s face in ugly patches. The pallor of his skin was almost translucent. 

Ratty clothes hung off his body. His right hand shook before he grabbed onto the bottle that materialized. The brown bottle slowly rose up to his lips.

A broken sort of laugh of disbelief was his only reaction.

“What?” he yelled out into the darkness. “This supposed to be me?”

Mirror Pete’s eyes continued to challenge him.

“The real me?” he scoffed.

The bottle was sipped.

“My future?” he mocked.

But his eyes could not look away at his befallen double. At a self that had been true once and did that mean it would be true again?

Mirror Pete tipped his beer bottle towards him.

Pete shook his head. “Fuck you!”

Still his eyes focused and he took in the angry lines of his poor excuse of a reflection. 

A draft of air blew across his face but he did not react.

Mirror Pete downed the bottle.

“No,” he whispered.

Again air blew through and this time his nose tickled but still he could not look away.

Mirror Pete smirked dangerously at him. Tauntingly. Another beer bottle in his hand.

A note of music shifted through the darkness and Pete turned his gaze away, his eyes narrowing on the darkness to the right of the mirror, it didn’t look as pitch-black as before somehow.

There was a muffled bang and he jumped. Mirror Pete glared at him, his hand sitting against the surface of the glass.

The wind blew again and he could hear the music louder. It was the looping circus music of the carnival’s rides.

The carnival.

Myka.

He started to look away but Mirror Pete shook his head at him. 

“Not going to work, buddy,” he hissed back. “This means nothing. Nothing, you hear me!”

He forced himself to look away, his eyes narrowing at the patch of moving darkness from before. The wind came again and he spotted the air moving, it was black fabric.

Another muffled bang but he did not dare look. He would not be tempted again. He lunged to the right and felt the billowing black fabric in his hand and pulled hard. The tent flap lifted up and moonlight touched the tips of his toes.

He stumbled through, the banging echoing behind him as he gulped at the fresh air and let the fabric fall behind.

In the moon lit sky he looked at his hands, they did not tremble. He reached up and touched his face, the cheeks were not sunken, and the skin was smooth.

He inhaled the fresh air greedily. Looking around he spotted a medium sized white tent; this part of the carnival was not familiar to him.

The carnival! Myka!

“H.G!” he yelled out with realization. Quickly he turned around but the structure of the Mirror Maze was nowhere to be seen, instead stables for a few horses stood in its place.

“What the-“

“Looks like the fool had more wits than we thought,” a gravelly voice spoke from behind him.

Pete turned back to the white tent. “You!”

The short man in his vintage clown costume stood smirking just inside, a lit cigar hanging from his lips and a plastic white cup in his hand.

“Where is Mr. Dark?” Pete demanded. “Where is the artifact that he is using to make all this happen?”

The man coughed in an attempt at laughter. “You’re going to run out of chances.”

“What? If I don’t fall for your mind games, I don’t get to be one of you? How sad.”

“He’ll kill you if he doesn’t win. If you truly are of no use to him in the end.”

“You my friend then, warning me?”

“Something like that.” He stepped forward. “Care for a drink…friend?” The clown threw the contents of his cup up at Pete and the liquid hit him in the chest, bits splashing up on his face. “He wants a fool and Mr. Dark always gets what he wants.”

The stench of beer was immediate, it’s thick scent burrowing up into his nose, it’s heaviness soaking through his shirt and making his skin sticky.

Pete didn’t react at first. When it occurred to him what had happened, when the shock had passed, there was anger, his fists clenching at his sides, his eyes narrowing at the smirking little clown but then…

Then he began to think and then all he could do was laugh.

The rough-edged clown frowned at him. “What? What’s so funny?”

Pete wiped the beer specks off of his chin. He looked down and wrung his shirt out as best he could without having to stop and take it off.

“Hey! I asked what’s so funny mister!”

“That’s it then,” Pete laughed. “A little trip down memory lane and a drink thrown in my face and I’m supposed to fold?”

The man stared back at him with an expression that said that was exactly what was supposed to happen.

“We almost had you the first day!” he yelled in spite.

“Yah, key word, almost,” Pete replied. “You see, you failed to see my flaw, my fuel at its very basic level.”

Confused eyes blinked at him silently.

“I’m not a liar,” Pete said. “I don’t lie to myself when it comes to my guilt, my pain. Not anymore. You think you stir the pot a little, mess with my impulses, throw the oil on my fire, quite literally, and I’ll fold, well, you just don’t get it.”

Pete towered over him and the man stepped back.

“It isn’t something that sits below the surface in me, it isn’t something you have to stir the pot to get to rise. It is not some secret. It is a truth that I wear. Every day I deal with it, every day I remember and I choose and I choose not to let it win. I have the power. Not you. Not Mr. Dark.”

The man turned to run but Pete stuck his foot out and he tripped over.

“You’ve done nothing I don’t already do to myself. Who’s the fool now?”

The fallen clown rolled over onto his back, fear in his eyes. Pete pulled his gun out and pointed it between them.

“Now, you are going to tell me everything I need to know about Mr. Dark and this here carnival, right now.”


	11. Chapter 11

>   
>  “It is my own smile. I have put my smile on the bullet in the rifle.”  
> 

Friend.

Foe.

Either.

Both.

Which masquerade would see she when she opened her eyes again? Would it matter in the end?

Helena opened her eyes and looked at her twenty or so doubles in the circle of mirrors.

Were they strangers?

Myka was right. Who was she? 

If Myka couldn’t see her, if Myka didn’t know…Helena’s breath started to come in short bursts, the tell tale signs of hyperventilating.

“Bloody hell,” she stuttered, her hand reaching up and pulling away at the buttons of her shirt. 

She recalled Pete’s words. She couldn’t fail him now. How much farther would she fail Myka if she did?

Helena gasped and her silent doubles mimed her action back. 

It wasn’t fair really. What was there left for Myka to see? 

This was not on Myka, she reminded herself.

Slowly, Helena started to even her breathing out, her eyes never stopping to focus on the depths of the mirrors, just the blackness around them.

There had to be a way out.

Again and again her hands travelled along the side and bottom edges of the mirrors but there was no breakaway, no hidden panel, no exit to be seen. The tops of the mirrors were outside her reach, but it made no difference, darkness hung above them like a large black hole, sucking in the random light that hovered in the center of the circle, so that she could not see anything beyond. 

She was alone.

She supposed that was the idea. Or maybe, not truly alone, not really, not when her reflections trapped her. 

Cautious eyes looked up to meet their copy. The reflection before her looked the same. She waited and stared and waited and nothing changed. She spun around and faced the other side. She waited for her face to twist wickedly, for her doubles’ forms to shift, to become larger and sharper, to become smaller and sleeker, for the vile unpleasantness to rise to the surface but nothing rippled on the other side. It all remained the same.

Eyes that did not grow darker.

Lips that did not smirk or gloat, they merely sat upon her face impartially.

Unmarked skin upon her hands endured.

It was all the same.

She twisted around and caught another mirror’s glance and stepped closer. The reflection that met her did not manipulate itself in any way. She stood and stared, waiting for the trick, for the game to show itself and nothing twitched out of place.

It was truly all her own.

That was to be the game then.

Her lungs expanded. Panic began to edge itself into her bloodstream. Where was that light coming from? What if it went out? The darkness again, the loneliness, only her mind, only her thoughts reverberating back to her on an endless loop, no other sensation but the smothering isolating nothingness. 

Her chest hurt immediately, thoughts already twisting her body’s reactions, a deceptively easy human trait and a flaw she abhorred. Bending down she focused on the light around her feet and nothing else as she breathed in and out. 

Focus she implored. Focus. Focus. She repeated the word in her head. A mantra.

After a moment she found the panic start to ease and she stood up and stepped closer towards one of the mirrors.

Space between was shortened as she reached up and trailed her finger over her mirrored lips; they were but a short line, a resolved look. The finger trailed up over the cold surface to where the eyes glimmered back.

Was this the face of the betrayer?

Of the schemer?

Of the repented?

The hero?

A savior?

A lost cause?

Writer? Inventor? Agent? Mother? Killer? Lover? 

Her breath hovered over the glass, fogging a patch that spilled out to blur more of her image. Reaching up she wiped it away and did not flinch as she took in the sadness of her eyes that was not a manipulation. It was perfectly, undeniably real.

Coward.

The lines of her face did not change. She blinked once and she pushed the sadness away.

Liar.

Was there a change to be made?

Was this to be her torment? Nothing different. The blankness she saw that filtered in and out upon her face, was that strength, was that resolve, was it armor or was it merely a weak truth? Was protection just an easy act of unaccountability?

Pulling back from the mirror she played at forcing a smile on her face. Her doubles smiled back. She frowned and they all frowned, the Greek tragedy playing itself out, only she the director of the Character’s Mask.

And she figured that this was how it was meant to be, identity crisis in the pits of hell. No blazing end of heroic glory, no it was never meant to be that way. No quick end at all. Always a slow suffering that never quite boiled over, it just simmered. Eventually, though, simmering always leads to an end, a disappearance.

And so she would vanish.

She forced a new smile a littler wider, a little too big and unnatural, and the eyes had a sudden pliant look that lead to a softness to her cheeks. Her shoulders dropped, her stance was loose and there…

…was Emily Lake.

Emily Lake blinked twice.

It should have been harder but it was not.

“Emily Lake,” she jeered. “What a half-wit.”

A sneer pulled across her face, turning the page on Emily Lake.

Was this H.G. Wells? Was this all there was, anger and dissatisfaction she thought?

Helena Wells.

Helena, whose brother Charles had always gotten the glory, the recognition.

The sneer softened into a quirk of dignified irritation. 

Helena Wells, genius.

Her shoulders shifted up.

Helena, mother to Christina Wells.

“Always,” she whispered, her eyes caught in her reflection. She could not look away at the moisture that formed in less demanding eyes. 

Her back snapped straight, her stance was tighter as she exhaled a shaky breath.

“You are Helena Wells,” she whispered. 

She raised her palm up against the glass. “You are nothing more and nothing less than in this moment.”

She slid her palm up a degree along the mirror. “And that is all right.”

Her focused shifted down to where her hand met the surface.

**Focus.**

“For Helena Wells is many things,” she spoke up, her voice becoming stronger.

“Good and bad,” she continued. “But so very, many things, you are.”

The light above her flickered threateningly.

**Focus.**

Catching her own gaze, she leant in towards the glass. “And you aren’t going to let them win.”

She shook her head back and forth. “That’s what I thought.”

And then her hand shifted a space back from the mirror, her fingers curled in, her sleeve pulled over and her fist met the mirror in a flash of action.

Over and over she punched the surface but nothing cracked, nothing spilt.

Breathing a little heavier, she growled in frustration at the pristine glass. Blood dripped down from the broken skin of her knuckles despite her attempt at protection, but none of it had disturbed the cleanliness of the mirror before her.

It refused to be marked.

It refused her any passing entry.

A looking glass that preferred to tease and taunt.

Sparking rage hopped inside her veins and she spun around with a yell before kicking out at the very same mirror.

Sound followed, bouncing through the air but it was not the crack or crash she had been hoping for. The glass was still perfectly in place in its frame. 

A small half smile turned her lips up when she did see what the purpose of the sound had been. The mirror remained intact but the force of her kick had caused the mirror to slant, it’s heavy panel tilted up into the unknown darkness, but the angle could be useful.

Turning, she eyed the amount of space she had across the room and calculated how much speed she would need to get enough leverage on the glass panel at its present angle. Possibly if she did, she’d be able to grab the top and climb over into whatever further torment there was to be, but at least she’d be moving. 

Crossing as far as she could to the other side she turned around and bent her knees in a half of a runner’s stance.

“Righty ho,” she murmured and then she was off.

The space granted her about four and a half wide lunges and her feet hit the center of the mirror. She was half surprised the glass did not crack or falter under her weight. The surface was too slippery to run up and she felt her feet start to slide back down. She kicked off and reached out with both hands straight above her in the air as she began to fall back.

Her backside hit the hard floor.

She jumped back up and crossed the room again, her stance lower as she eyed the mirror with an eager grin. She may have fallen on the first try but on the fall down her fingers had touched the top edges of the mirror. There was indeed an end to be conquered.

One, two, three, four and in the air she went, her feet hit a point remarkably higher than before on the panel and she leapt off forward into the air even before she began to slip. 

“Ah-ha,” she exclaimed with satisfaction as her hands gripped the top of the mirror’s frame.

Her body lay parallel to the glass as she hung on. She tried pulling herself up with just her arms, but the angle was uncomfortable and put too much strain on her muscles. As she pulled, she used her feet to climb up but still the glass was far too slippery.

“A grappler would be great right about now,” she huffed out.

Edging her feet out to the side of the mirror, she tried to find some grip on the frame. She caught an edge and pushed off, the momentum throwing her body up higher along the glass. She latched onto the top quickly, half of her arms over the frame now, it would be easy enough to pull herself over.

Half her face was over the top and she could make out the outline of the rest of the maze in the dim light.

“Pete!” she yelled out. “Pete!”

He did not respond and she hoped it was because he had indeed been successful in finding a way out.

At least she would have an equal chance now. Her chin was now almost past the top, her arms bending as she started to gain more leverage.

A warm breeze went past and caressed her face. Her nose tickled. She looked up and tried to gauge which direction it had come from, maybe it would provide a clue for the way out. But then she felt the breeze curl at the back of her hair and it wound itself down the line of her spine, the pressure against her stronger than the touch by her face.

Sudden changes in direction for the wind were not making any sense.

“Don’t look back,” she muttered as she continued her pursuit over. “Don’t-“

A forceful gust of wind came barreling down the path just below and in front of her, it was strong enough that she could hear the whooshing sound it was making as it got closer and closer.

“No!” she screamed.

But it was too late, the wind shook the space before her, the force of it slamming into the panel and somehow this action righted the mirror back in place and Helena was flung off of her escape route and back onto the cold hard ground of her reflecting prison.

Except this time, this time she was not alone.

She didn’t have to turn around to see her, to see the dusty golden crack that struck itself into every reflection.

The Dust-Witch.

“No, I didn’t suppose it would be that easy,” Helena remarked as she slowly stood up and turned to face her company.

The shimmering golden veil of the Witch shook back and forth as she tilted her head in silent observation.

“Was the self-reflecting melt-down not on par with what you were expecting?” Helena mocked.

“Can’t have me escaping, not when Mr. Dark needs my soul, but I am afraid you see, that I am not willing to depart with it,” she continued when the Witch did not speak.

“He knows now,” the Witch hissed. “Too bad for you.”

“And where is the gentleman of this dark hour?”

“With his queen.”

“Not for long.” Helena glared.

The Witch tilted her head to the other side. “She is not yours.”

“You can’t have any of us,” Helena declared.

“There is nothing left of you to have,” the Witch murmured with a croaking laugh. “Nothing.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know the way out of here would you?” she asked, hoping to by pass the woman’s theatrics. “I would be very much obliged if you could-“

The Witch chose to answer by lifting her veil back, sandpaper-covered hands raising up to flick the golden curtain away.

Helena stopped talking. The words caught in her mouth when her jaw clamped shut at the horror in front of her, a horror that multiplied itself through the rows of reflecting glass.

“What…” she stammered. “What has he done to you?”

The Witch’s parched lips were now like dark leather that had baked itself in the sun. They stretched into a slim smile, the cracking of her skin made an evident pop as she did so, and deep crevices in the lips themselves pulled and stretched in a painful way. The skin of her once smooth face was now full of blistering wrinkles, the space in between them dark and barren. Hair peeked out from the veil like frayed wires. Patches of her skin and hair were so dry and brittle; Helena imagined that just the slightest touch could turn parts to dust.

All of this was just the prelude, the opening act to the final blow, because it was the Dust-Witch’s eyes that held the true revulsion. Helena could not look away from the newest repugnant monstrosity that had befallen this wayward soul. 

The Dust-Witch was truly blind now. There was no doubt about that.

The Witch’s creased eyelids were sewn shut. Jagged stitches pricked the crinkled skin of her withering cheeks; dried scabs of blood followed the pattern of the string.

“All the better to see,” she hissed and stepped closer across the room. The breath she expelled was heavy with the depths of a bog; the air she released was like a gust of wind blowing through an everglade, swampy and stifling. With each word, with each hiss, she was liberating all the moisture left inside of her. 

In reaction, Helena took a step back.

“All the better to feel,” the Witch continued, two scratchy hands lifting up and dancing around in the air between them.

“Feel?”

Skin popped and cracked as the Witch smirked back. 

“Old woman, feel your hurt…” she crooned, her right hand reaching out further in the air.

The broken skin on Helena’s knuckles stung, the blood pumped stronger at the open wounds, the pain pulsing where it hadn’t before. She hadn’t had time to focus on it.

Th-thump. Th-thump. It pulsed just beneath the surface of the skin.

It hammered like a beacon inside of her, the oscillating pain that was spilling out inside, reawakening the crumpling hurt Mr. Dark had inflicted on her before, and the sharp pain of her falls.

“Old woman, old woman, old woman…”

Th-thump. Th-thump. Her hand felt too heavy to lift.

“Old woman, out of time, out of time…”

The Dust-Witch crept forward, her hands spinning in the air, knitting some foretold web of fate.

“Stop-“ Helena stuttered as she lifted up her other hand between them. Her chest felt heavier than before as she tried to breathe evenly.

“Old woman, feel your hurt,” the Witch sneered. She jerked her right hand sharply in the air.

Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump. The pulse was louder this time. It was no longer originating in her injured hand, it was her heart, and her heart was beating furiously inside of her chest. 

The Dust-Witch turned her ear towards her. “There it is…” she soothed.

Nimble sandy fingers curled in the air, the witch miming the acting of pulling something back and then the dry pads of her fingertips waved in the air a track of patterns over and under the dunes only she could feel.

Th-thump. Th-tump. Th-thump. 

The hand curled again and Helena jumped. TH-THUMP. TH-THUMP. TH-THUMP. For a moment it had felt like that very hand had been inside of her chest.

Squeezing her heart. TH-THUMP.

Panic was a loose stampede below her surface. Helena felt the anxiety like a toxic balloon popping inside her, poison seeping out, contaminating every part of her. She gasped harshly. Sweat beaded at her temple and her knees wobbled as she stared at her nefarious puppeteer. She waited for the anger to speed through her, the rage she could be know for, the hot spiking uproar that had convulsed inside of her since her daughter’s death. She anticipated the agitating wrath that had been stirring inside of her since she had been a woman forced to lie about everything she was. She stood by for the fury that came with being toyed with but none of it arrived.

She waited and all that boiled through, that burned and pulsed was the extreme panic.

She was a failure.

TH-THUMP.

She was a liar.

TH-THUMP.

Who was she to judge being toyed with?

TH-HUMP.

Breath shuddered inside of her. 

Rage was but a child’s blanket.

TH-THUMP.

“Damn you,” Helena screamed out. 

Burnt firecracker fingers tugged and pulled. “Slow the heart,” the Witch whispered. “Very simple.”

The pulsing started to slow, it’s beat mellowing inside of her. Th…th…ump.

“Slow.” The Witch stepped closer.

Helena’s good hand reached up and grabbed at the left side of her chest. Would she feel the Witch’s hand under hers, would she feel the lump of dust that was settling over her heart, smothering it?

“Slow the heart.”

The panic began to dull, her head no longer itched hotly and her limbs were less tense and heavy. Gasping for air was still difficult but as Helena slumped against the back of the mirror behind her, as her vision began to blur, it didn’t seem so important anymore.

“Slow the heart.”

Why not? She thought.

“Slow down.”

The glass was cool against her cheek.

“Stop all for good, forget all for good.”

Yes.

“Slower…slowest.” The Dust-Witch stood over her slumped body. At some point Helena had slid down to the ground. With sleepy eyes she looked up at the Dust-Witch. Inside of her, her heart stumbled and she closed her eyes.

“Much more slow…”

With one last ounce of strength because she was indeed feeling tired, the most tired she had ever felt in her life, she opened her eyes to say goodnight. She watched curiously as the Witch’s gritty fingers moved in the air just above her chest. The Witch was chanting low as her fingers diddled the air…yes, she was diddling the air, Helena mused and then for no other reason at all did Helena burst out laughing.

“Slow,” the Witch huffed, a frown creasing her face with another cavern wrinkle. Her fingers continued to diddle the air, yes, …and they tickled, and Helena giggled.

The Witch paused.

But still, Helena found herself giggling deliriously, her sudden watery eyes looking up at the Witch.

“Slow!” the Witch hissed.

Helena giggled again at the ridiculousness of the other woman’s hands. A deep laugh shook through her tired body and she noticed the Witch immediately flinch as though she had been struck. 

“Slow the blood.” The Witch shook her hands in the air and moved her fingers around.

Helena laughed and again the Witch flinched. It was utterly ridiculous she mused, all of this, dying and laughing, dying here while Myka was out there somewhere. Finally reunited and it had only been half of a reunion. Because it was so like them to not get a chance to hash things out, no, instead an evil artifact powered carnival had to come along and try and kill them before they could.

Maybe that was just their thing?

Maybe it was their foreplay?

She laughed heartily at her thoughts, the action waking her body up.

The Dust-Witch hovered near, anger and fear now pulsing off of her. She punched her fingers out in the air again.

“Stop,” Helena laughed. “It tickles.”

It was such a ridiculous thing to jump ahead a century just to die in a carnival, quite simply preposterous.

Helena kept laughing.

“No!” The Witch cried.

Helena found her to be as equally ridiculous. It was all so funny when one took the time to think on it, life mocking her back endlessly. A game of give and take. Sometimes she could only be dwarfed in its shadow and sometimes she could only lean over and laugh at its ego.

“Sleep! Slow! Stop the heart!” 

“Stop,” Helena laughed as she found the strength to slowly start to stand back up and away from the mirrors. “Get off my ribcage,” she continued to chuckle.

The Witch cowered back, each laugh striking her, somewhere deep inside the laughs were echoing, bouncing around the paper like shell she inhabited. Helena’s laughter was ripping right through her.

And while the Dust-Witch and her child like tantrum brought only Helena more amusement, she was aware that on some level there lived a real person inside, a toy of Mr. Dark’s to wind up and set out, but Helena despite all her faults, despite all her fears, wanted to survive and survive she would.

Helena Wells did not go down without a fight.

Now it was Helena who stood just over the Witch. A grainy scowl morphed itself on the other woman’s face like folded paper.

“You can’t win,” the Witch moaned. “Stop the heart!”

It only just tickled again. Helena chortled. A phrase ran itself to the front of her mind.

_“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”_

And the laughter that spilled out of her lips was not forced, it was not fake, it was not mocking or cruel, it was the kind that rolled in her stomach, that ached warmly in her chest and danced itself across her tongue freely.

She was going to get out and she was going to help Myka and Pete and then she would stamp down on anymore ridiculous, because she was not a toy for anyone, let alone a man in an outdated top hat.

A snicker escaped again and the Witch bent down towards the ground in pain.

Across from her, Helena could now see her reflection head on and there she met her own smile. A Wells kind of smile, no panic, no rage, and no fear in its lines, just the stretching of what lay beneath all of that. 

Helena.

The corner of her lips twitched even wider, her smile growing and the glass before her cracked right where her mouth was. She chortled at the sudden unexpectedness of it and the crack splintered out, each panel following the same action and as Helena’s smile became an open one, all at once the sheets of glass slipped from their frames and fell to the floor.

Reacting on instinct despite the giddiness she felt, Helena covered her head and bent down as the noise of all the mirrors in the rest of the maze began to crash down far away from her as well. When at last the noise stopped, Helena pulled her arms back and looked around. The tent that had housed the maze was no more. Moonlight welcomed her back. By her feet were piles and piles of silver like dust and in the middle lay the Dust-Witch.

She nudged the woman with her toe but the Witch was unresponsive. Cautiously, she reached down and checked for a pulse. It was faint, but it was there.

Not wasting anymore time, Helena took off past the silver dunes, a light airy sort of feeling spurring her on.

Myka had said the carnival was a playground for good and evil in the story and conceivably, good then had a chance as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of trivia: The quote that Helena recites is from Moby Dick and it is one of the epigraphs Bradbury uses at the beginning of Something Wicked


	12. Chapter 12

>   
>  “…eyes shut, listening to hear if that thing inside turned over again, rustling in the deep bons that were stacked for burning but never burned.”  
> 

The parking lot of the carnival was mostly deserted except for a few pieces of trash that sat precariously upon the stone pebbles of the ground, bottles strewn across randomly in nooks, and a few shadowed cars that were scattered like forgotten buoys in the darkness, the spaces between waiting to be filled like plots of a cemetery.

_“Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death!”_

Myka parked the car and turned the engine off. Her fingers curled around the steering wheel as she looked through the windshield towards the Mr. Electro sign. The row of light bulbs in each letter of the sign were sizzling and blazing upon night’s dark curtain. The dull green of the car’s digital clock blinked pathetically in comparison. It was just almost 2:30am.

Her hands tightened against the wheel.

_“And wasn’t it true, had he read somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. than at any other time…”_

The time on the clock slid forward.

One last squeeze on the wheel and she undid her seatbelt and got out of the car. The door slammed shut, the noise of it did not stand out in the abandoned lot; it was but an added beat to the hour of the night. The night impossibly held a partnership of silence and rhythm. It was quiet around her and yet, in the distance the murmur called. 

The score of the hour.

_“A calliope began to play oh so softly, grieving to itself, a million miles away.”_

The words of the book kept looping around in her mind as she stepped towards the gate. She stopped a moment before crossing over, her eyes chancing one more look up as the lights of the sign burned hungrily, she swore she could feel the heat of it.

There was no half look over her shoulder; there was no tilt of her head back towards the street to where the motel lay. Myka felt no desire to turn back. A category in her mind, a thought process of warnings and cautions tried to fight ahead. A concern that she shouldn’t have come and that she should have told Pete and Helena pulsed weakly. This wasn’t protocol. But the thoughts were merely an already forgotten disclaimer. The notion had been contemplated, it had been ignored and no further effect had occurred, no churning in her gut, no jumpiness that came from a perceived guilt.

She was still.

She needed to know.

She wanted her own answers.

Desire was not behind her, it was in front of her.

People were missing, people were dead, people were falling apart and perhaps that was part of the spark, but the fire that burned was all her own.

Stepping forward to pass under the sign, she moved and was quickly through the gate. Charon did not meet her with his boat to shepherd her through. 

The journey was hers.

The music of the carousel was immediately louder on the other side of the sign. It sounded both mournful and excited. She kept her eyes on the empty merchandise stalls and food carts but no one made an appearance.

The ground crunched under her feet, she looked down and observed the array of fallen leaves. Crunchy reds, yellows, oranges and browns now covered most of the grass. Normally, there would have been nothing unusual about such a natural phenomenon, except for the fact that summer was only just coming to an end. The air too, held the crispiness and sharpness one could feel on the fall nights of when the month of October ushered itself in. The scent of the air was swirling with an earthiness of dirt with damp decay and on the tip of it the sweet tartness of black licorice. 

The setting had fully begun to immerse itself into the reality of the book. October had been the month of two young boys’ journey with a supernatural carnival. Ray Bradbury’s world was now, indeed, beyond the page, somehow stronger than before.

Autumn was making its way ahead of time. Bare tree limbs of the supernatural harvest would begin to push themselves like tendrils of destruction beyond the very grounds. Scratchy bony wooden hands of want reaching out to un-seed the land. 

Because it had been so very important for the boys to learn, to understand, to heed the harvest, to heed the time after when things began to die, when things began to turn dark. The carnival needed autumn.

Myka turned and twisted through the grounds and still there was no other sound but the music of the carousel. 

It was a ghost town. 

A place lying in wait.

_“A carnival should be all growls, roars like timberlands stacked, bundled, rolled and crashed, great explosions of lion dust, men ablaze with working anger, pop bottles jangling, horse buckles shivering, engines and elephants in full stampede through rains of sweat while zebras neighed and trembled like trapped in cage.”_

This was no ordinary carnival.

_“…this was like old movies, the silent theater haunted with black-and-white ghosts, silvery mouths opening to let midnight smoke out, gestures made in silence so hushed you could hear the wind fizz the hair on your cheeks.”_

Yes, that is this carnival, she thought. Mr. Dark’s carnival was a phantom that slithered upon the ground soundlessly before buzzing under your skin, before tuning you to its soundtrack.

She followed the notes towards the awaiting carousel. The ride was all lit up with anticipation, white light bulbs glowing everywhere, along the sides, towards the top of its canopy, along the inside of the floor, the blaze was reflected twice over by the mirrors on the ceiling and the sides of the middle. The roundabout was a multiplying ring of fire, with bizarre looking ceramic horses that went up and down through the artificial flames that formed in the air with the spinning motion. The deformed features of the horses was more obvious now, the look of them relaying some kind of internal rage at never being able to truly leap off from their permanent state. Stuck in an act of constant movement but forever at a standstill. What power was trapped inside that craved release? Was this the artifact power source? Was this the thing that called out in the night? 

Down and up and around and around the ride went.

Up. 

Down. 

Around. 

And again. And again.

She did not step any closer. She stood and waited, her eyes taking in every detail, the white teeth, the dark painted eyes, the way the notes of music that spilled from it were heavy on the air, and how the atmosphere felt weighted down.

Her feet did not budge.

Around and around.

If the draw was already in place, she just needed to wait for the show. The showman.

Up. 

Down. 

Spinning around.

She half expected the man to appear right in front of her, his dark steps leaping off of the very ride but instead she heard the soft confident footfalls coming up from behind her.

She closed her eyes and let the music flow over her, but it was the warmth of the rings and strings of fire that played itself all through her.

“It’s a beauty isn’t it?” a smooth voice called softly.

“I’m sure the artist would find charm in it,” she replied.

Steady footsteps came to a stop beside her.

“I cannot tell if that is a compliment or not.”

Myka opened her eyes and only looked towards Mr. Dark out of the corner of her eye. She did not need to turn to see the smirk she knew he would have planted on his face. His smiles were like rips in the ozone.

“I am sure there is beauty…to be found in it, if one were keen to look,” she replied again.

Mr. Dark cut his laugh in the air. “For a moment, I thought you were going to say something like ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, but you surprised me, Myka Bering.”

She tilted her head at him, her eyes shifting towards his. “But you aren’t surprised I surprised you?”

A small challenging smirk twitched at her lips, but Mr. Dark’s own smile more than made up for hers.

“You, my dear, are by far the most interesting person to walk through my gates.”

“I think you are expecting too much.”

“Oh, I don’t think I am going to be disappointed.”

The definition of self-assurance was plastered across his face.

She turned away from her observation of him and focused back on the spinning ride.

“I have to confess,” she began. “I am a little disappointed.”

“In what?” he asked, a note of surprise, a hint of awaiting displeasure all coming across despite the control of his voice.

“Well, this isn’t exactly subtle.” She quirked an eyebrow at the ride that was lit up like the fourth of July. “Not really my kind of thing.”

Mr. Dark chuckled. “Yes, I believe I may see your point but you see, for some people it needs to be more obvious, for some the more extra something is in their face the less they truly see. Not everyone wants to see beyond the curtain.”

He clapped his hands together and his smile grew wider. “Why for some, all they need is the show and they’re in, the desire, the want, the need it doesn’t even need a push, just an opportunity.”

He reached up and tipped his hat towards her. “But you, Myka Ophelia Bering, do you even know why you came?”

She focused back on the blooming radiance of the ride.

“A curiosity,” she responded after a beat.

“What kind of…curiosity?”

She smiled, surprisingly, to herself. “At first, a physical curiosity of sorts…” she trailed off as she watched his gaze but he did not get her joke. “But then…” she turned back to the warm glow before her. “A curiosity of…the mind, of the-“

“Soul,” he finished. 

She remained silent for a moment as he basked in his circumference of confidence.

“Something like that,” she retorted with a shrug, her eyes not moving from the carousel.

Mr. Dark raised his hand up and twirled his finger in the air counter clockwise. The carousel immediately paused for a second before it began to spin backwards.

Up and Down. Around and around. It still all went the same but something fundamentality had changed. It was like a charge in the air. Lights sizzled with an audible hum. 

“Even the bumbling stooges feel my carnival on some level, even when they aren’t used to anything beyond the surface. The ones who don’t consider themselves adrift in anyway.” 

She expected him to posture in some way but all he used was his smirk, his eyes and his words. She widened her own eyes as she noticed the color of his, she recalled them being a dark brown when she had first met him, but now they were as black as the night sky. She blinked quickly and looked away, it was like looking into a void and expecting to see a reflection back.

She cleared her throat. “And what of the lost?” she asked.

“The lost?”

“Those that come but don’t know why?”

“Why, they are the bigger fish to catch of course. The lost at least know that something stirs. Peeling back those layers, pulling deep below the surface, why that’s where the most colorful ink lies.”

“Why then, did you turn away Bill Cornwell?”

A cackle of rolling laughter broke between them; he playfully clutched a hand against his chest. “See,” he remarked as he pointed a finger at her. “Surprised.”

She gave him no reaction.

“How are you so sure Bill Cornwell came to see me?” he asked with clear delight.

“Bill Cornwell never had a history of wandering off before. His medical history showed he had mobility issues, he was known never to wander past the gardens of his facility. Even if one were to allow for the opportunity he was given with the place being short staffed, what exactly would have been his urge? Even with his early stages of dementia, he would have a reason on some level, an old thought, an old desire that he was suddenly focused on, like going to pick up milk at the store for example.”

She glanced at the silent man beside her, eagerness coming off of him in waves.

“It was not a coincidence that he disappeared while your carnival was here.”

“But you originally thought it was?” he countered.

“It was a possibility and was the one I considered most likely at the time.”

“What changed?”

“When I realized what you were doing here, the book…” she trailed off, the ride had started to spin a little faster, the lights flashed.

“Go on,” he urged her.

“In the book, the carnival calls to everyone, it doesn’t matter, old or young. And there’s Bill Cornwell, a man who has lived a lifetime, a man who hears the familiar carnival music, smells it in the air, a man who grew up when such a thing was more common, when he was a young strong man. It calls to him. Word of the carnival passes between workers at his residence and then…there’s the thought, the idea…the carnival is back in town.”

“My, you have such an imagination.”

She turned and leveled her gaze at him. “I don’t think I have imagined anything.”

Somehow, even his eyes smirked at him; three dark smirks gleaming at her.

“They found him at the library, it’s just on the other side of here, past the woods.”

“A coincidence?”

She did not bother with a reply.

When she did not speak, he added, “Maybe, truly, I am but a kind man.”

“How is that?”

“Let’s say, Mr. Cornwell did come to me on a night just like this-“

“I don’t think it was just like this,” she countered, her eyes falling to the autumn leaves that blanketed the ground.

His smirk became slippery, his lips sliding wide. “Similar then, if not the exact details.”

She nodded and he continued, “I am but a giving man-“

Myka stifled the snort she felt tickling at the back of her throat. “You really think you are the part, don’t you?”

Her only answer was the twitch of his lips.

“Mr. Dark a giving man,” she scoffed to herself.

“Yes, I do deal in a give and take and you see…Mr. Cornwell had nothing to trade.”

She looked at him with a small degree of shock. “But everyone is just a walking vessel of goods for you,” she countered. “It is you pulling the strings is it not? Who is making the choices? Who lies behind the curtain?”

“I have no use for bad goods,” he replied simply and without further explanation.

This time it was her who laughed sharply. “I think most people would consider themselves damaged goods in some way.”

“Do you speak from experience?” 

For a moment her words caught in her throat. “I mean to say…that a life lived leaves-“

“Its marks,” he interrupted.

He stepped forward a little with a slight turn and his eyes wandered down from her face, over her chest and settled on her stomach. 

“A mark is not always a blemish, a spot to rub away, a scar can be a statement, a…” he raised his hand in the space between them and moved his palm over her lower abdomen. 

Her hand snapped out and grabbed his wrist before he could go any further. “Do not touch me,” she seethed abruptly.

A few of the lights on top of the canopy exploded. Pop. Sizzle. Pop. The glass of the bulbs shattered in the night.

Both she and Mr. Dark turned their gaze towards the action. Mr. Dark smiled back at her, glee and mirth twisting his features. He freely pulled his hand away and bowed slightly.

“My apologies.”

He motioned towards the ride. “Must be the fuses.”

The skin that had touched his wrist felt like it was on fire, the tips of her fingers tingled even as she pulled her hand up into the sleeve of her jacket.

“My wording should have been more accurate,” he continued on like she hadn’t even snapped at him, that he hadn’t just been out of line, he had the bravado of a waiter about to sit her down to a four-star meal to serve her mystery meat. “I did not mean bad goods, perhaps, it was no goods at all.”

She blinked at him.

“Your research into Mr. Cornwell’s background is admirable but the truth was that his dementia is more advanced than just the early stages. There was but a spark inside of him, a memory as you said, a recollection that led to a tiny yearning, but the yearning was all there was. He stumbled upon this carousel but what use would there be in letting him ride. In the end, he would be but a young boy with no mind, trapped maybe forever and even I am not that cruel. Life can be far crueler than I ever will be.”

“So even you have a line that you will not cross?”

“Why is it that you seem to think I am suddenly the monster here?”

“What about Jacob Roads?” she quickly countered.

A look of dissatisfaction crumbled on his face as his smile momentarily morphed into a frown before he recovered.

“Mr. Roads,” he began and there was an evident harshness to his tone. “Mr. Roads was a broken man, a drunk, a man with no regard for anyone else. But still, all those things moved around inside of him like colorful bursts and I agreed to his trade…”

“But there was an accident?” she supplied when he trailed off, a thoughtful look on his face.

“Yes.”

“Instead of making him younger-“

The loudest laugh yet burst through his mouth. “The agent has not imagined all the facts.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “What makes you think Jacob wished to become younger?”

His finger twirled in the air again but it was a clockwise action and the carousel jerked to a brief stop before spinning forward again.

“He wanted to become older,” she said in surprise.

“Of sorts.” He started to walk around her in a circle; he shifted up behind her ear. “How could you forget? I mean we both know you didn’t come here to take a spin backwards.”

He circled back around and stood in front of her.

“You think…I want to go forward?”

For a brief moment again, the smiling mask slipped and he narrowed his eyes at her with a look of apprehension. “After what Mr. Roads did-“

“What did he do?”

“Mr. Roads, as I said, was a broken spiteful man, he drank and he drank because he could not spare a sober thought towards living. I had an inkling of his desire, his true desire.”

“Which was?”

“An end.”

“What?”

“He wanted it all to end, to just stop but he was too much of a coward to do it himself.”

“He wanted to die,” she whispered with realization.

And still Mr. Dark eyed her wearily.

“I agreed to let him go forward. I figured I’d age him up but still leave a few years to have him carrying on with the carnival, to have that malicious intent of his to feast off of, even just for a little while. But…”

A snarl twisted itself on his face as he turned to look at the ride. “The man was more deceitful than I thought, he held on tighter, he wouldn’t let go, his energy, his lust, the carousel hungered for it and I could not stop him or it and so in the end…the man got his end of the deal.”

He did not bother to hide his bitterness as he turned back to her. “I will not make that same mistake again.”

“Where is Melissa Freeze?” she demanded. She felt his anger at not being able to trick and enslave someone else’s soul for what would have no doubt been more than just a few years if given the chance only spurred her on. “Why are you doing any of this? You are hurting and killing people!”

“She is…around.” The dark smirk was back.

He stepped closer. “So many questions, but why don’t you ask the one question you really want to ask?”

“I am investigating the disappearances-“

“Of course you are, and maybe that was the spark, but that is not why you came here tonight. Why you slipped away in the night.”

Myka suddenly hated him more than ever before.

“You’ve abandoned your partners,” he cooed.

Closer and closer he came, the blackness of his outfit bleeding into the night, his overbearing shadow started to block out everything else. A faint glow outlined his tall figure. In the darkness it looked like his body had stretched even taller. Everything felt suddenly muffled to her. The music of the ride sounded like she was underwater. She felt herself sway on the spot, her eyes trying to focus as he raised a finger up and tilted her chin towards him.

“I don’t want to play games with you, Myka,” he whispered huskily. “I will give you my answer and you give me yours. We just need to ask the right questions.” 

His warm breath puffed against her lips.

There was the thought to jerk away but her body refused to listen.

“You came here on your own. Your friends were left behind and that was smart, maybe even thoughtful. Maybe they will be smart too and will stay away. Maybe they will let the Dust-Witch work her magic-“

Anger at his threat towards Pete and Helena was able to fuse a connection between her thought and body. She jerked away with a scowl; the glow around him from the ride pulsed brighter as she stepped outside of his shadow.

“If you hurt them, I will-“

He leaned in and cut her words off with his own mouth. The stubble of his beard scratched against her skin, the hairs leaving their mark as his hand came up behind her neck and forced her closer as she tried to jerk back. His lips were warm and soft, his tongue was not forceful, but soothing with a bit of a kick, it sent a lukewarm feeling through her body. The feeling of being underwater powered through again, her limbs stalling in action. The fiery taste upon her tongue did not last forever, for just underneath it all, she could feel it, she found the flavor of decay, the rotting of fruit, she savored the warning and pulled back quickly. Her hand reaching up to pull his away and she stomped on his foot and slapped the man of shadows across the face.

He started to laugh as she stumbled back.

“Why is it that you suppress your desires, your wants and needs so much? Is it in your genetic make-up to refuse all-“

“Shut up!” she snapped.

Pop. Sizzle. Another row of bulbs exploded on the ride.

This time Mr. Dark did turn to look with an expression of slight alarm.

“Whatever you are using to turn this carnival into a supernatural playing field just so you can get your rocks off, needs to end, now!” she yelled.

Dark eyes caught hers. “Why would I ever give that power up?”

“Because, it’s changing even you, it’s taking over everything, we will all be lost forever.”

He chuckled. “Some people prefer to be lost.”

“Stop waxing your sleazy poetry,” she retorted as she wiped her mouth against the back of her hand.

“Agent Wells for example,” he continued.

Myka’s entire body tensed up right away. “Leave her alone.” It was a statement and a threat.

“That will be entirely up to her.” He looked up at the night sky and smiled. “But I know, if I was her, I wouldn’t be able to just let you go either.”

“I think you forget that I have a say in all of this.” She felt the heat in her palms, the skin of their surface sweating as she unclenched and clenched her fists.

“Of course,” he shrugged. “You were saying something about this carnival and you want me to stop, but you see, sometimes words, words are but a mask and I taste the lies in the air.”

“I am not lying,” she snapped.

Pop. Sizzle. Pop.

“You don’t want it to stop, not yet, not without your answer.”

Something caught his attention far off towards the rest of the carnival. He tilted his head towards it. He paused, listening for whatever only he could hear and he frowned.

“Troublemakers,” he murmured to himself. He then clapped his hands again and smiled at her. “It appears something else has briefly caught my attention that I must deal with, but I know you will not be leaving.”

“I think your definition of knowing is skewed.”

He raised his hand up in the air and closed his fist; the carousel stopped spinning and stood still.

“If you will excuse me. I hope you understand I will not be leaving you unattended with the ride.”

“I thought I didn’t want to ride it,” she scoffed.

He stepped towards her, his shadow looming again, the atmosphere becoming heavier. “I believe you are searching for an end of some kind as well and I do not wish to throw out the wrong temptations.”

A funny sort of laugh tumbled out of her mouth in disbelief but no words followed.

The coattails of his jacket fluttered up in the air as he jumped on the spot and slithered up behind her. The air in her chest caught, the muffled sensation came and went for a second. He raised his hand up over her shoulder and closed it again. The lights on the ride shut off, the embers cooling, and the music slowed and then stuttered to a stop. 

She shivered in the darkness.

“Are you cold, Myka?” he asked with a timbre of laughter.

She whipped around but the man was already gone, his darkness absorbed into the night and on. She was alone again.

It was in that silent darkness that her thoughts came through with a familiar sense of clarity, the muted feeling slightly less, and she knew she needed to find Pete and Helena.

Her steps took off for the exit, but her trail looped around and back and eventually she lost track of where she was going. Leaves crunched and flew about, the thick scented air filling her up and spinning her head. 

Where was she going? What was she trying to find? Why had she come here again?

Fireworks flew up into the sky and burst everywhere, their color and warmth raining down on her cheeks as she followed them. Heat trembled along her skin and when Pete and Helena found her she could only focus on the ignition and what kindling there was to throw. 

A combination of white-hot flames ripped through, it pulled from end to end, and it fought the sleepy sway that tried to subdue her. 

When the Dust-Witch had thrown her far away on the ground, she felt the anger still, in fact it pulsed brighter, her hands clutched the leaf-covered ground. Her nostrils filled with the dark earth’s odor. 

And the feeling, the feeling she’d begun to feel since the first day at carnival, tripled over inside of her, it flipped and swept through, the warmth and the fire, the burning. 

She had been so cold for so long and here, on the unnatural autumn floor she found it, the beat, the lifeline that buzzed under her skin. 

How was it that the season of dying, filled her with vitality? Was she already a freak waiting to find her service?

The energy swirled inside of her, her head felt hot and dizzy again. When she was able to raise her head up and look for Helena and Pete she was shocked to see they were no longer in front of her. Only two dark covered feet made their way towards her. Rusty leaves kicking up in the air as Mr. Dark approached.

The razor blade of life and death lay below them forever expanding. An autumn edge that threatened to cut them all. 

And there, Myka sat, hazardously, on the border.


	13. Chapter 13

>   
>  “I’m a fool. Always looking over your shoulder to see what’s coming instead of right at you to see what’s here. But then, for what salve it gives me, every man’s a fool. Which means you got to pitch in all your life, bail out, board over, tie rope, patch plaster, pat cheeks, kiss brows, laugh, cry, make do, against the day you’re the fool of all and shout ‘Help!’ Then all you need is one person’s answer. I see it so clear, across the country tonight lie cities, towns and mere jerkwater stops of fools. So the carnival steams by, shakes any tree: it rains jackasses. Separate jackasses, I should say, individuals with no one, they think, or no one actual, to answer their ‘Help!’ Unconnected fools, that’s the harvest the carnival comes smiling after with its threshing machine.”  
> 

It was one thing to have a piece of the puzzle, but another thing entirely to know the playing board. Or more apt, the frickin’ picture on the box, the blueprint would at least be helpful.

New information played through Pete’s mind, his brain repeating it over and over, so not to lose sight, to not be distracted again. But it was only a piece, a middle piece at best, just a fragment scattered with no idea where to place it exactly. 

He kept his eyes open, his head darting back and forth as he traversed the grounds. His gun gripped in his hand as he went. Mr. Dark would be the asshole that would come by and kicked up the unfinished puzzle.

Adrenaline pumped through his blood. The trial of the Mirror Maze had had the opposite effect on him than what the carnival’s cohorts had anticipated. He was more alert than ever and more determined to shut the place down. Fear still tickled the back of the spine, it breezed by the back of his neck, the tiny hairs on his arms stood up with a charge but it did not burrow deep inside, his stomach did not flip, his chest did not tighten, and his steps were not weary. 

A clanging sound two alleys over caught his attention. The closer he got, the louder the noise echoed around the grounds, a crash of metal hitting metal repeating over and over. Whoever was making all the racket sure didn’t care for keeping a low profile.

Crouching low behind a stall, Pete took a chance and glanced around the corner and made out most of the Ferris Wheel that was slowly making it’s loop. He couldn’t make out anyone near it but the smacking of metal was definitely coming somewhere in the area.

Pulling back, he leant his head back against the stall.

“Please don’t be something freaky deaky, please don’t be something freaky deaky,” he whispered.

With a final sigh, he popped his head out for another peak and then moved across the aisle quickly. As he crossed over he caught a brief glimpse of a shovel lifting in the air and then crashing down into a cart of the Ferris Wheel on the other side of it.

“What the…” he murmured to himself.

He squinted his eyes as he took another look but a cotton candy cart blocked his view of whoever was swinging the shovel. 

“Please don’t be something freaky deaky,” he muttered again as he moved across the next aisle closest to the ride. “No freaky deaky.”

The next option for cover in getting a clear view didn’t afford a lot of coverage. Nonetheless, Pete lurched forward, somersaulted across the ground and leant his back up against a cart for nuts. No nut puns he willed to himself.

Up this close he could make out the string of curses that accompanied the slamming shovel. 

He immediately rolled his eyes and stood up.

The curses were accented, British to be exact. His moves had been for nothing.

Keeping an eye out still, he jogged over to where Helena was slamming a shovel into each cart as it passed by her at the base of the Ferris Wheel. Several of them were already dinged and the paint scratched up.

“Ruddy asshole.” He heard her mumble.

When she spoke next her voice was an American accent. “Oh, look at my majestic carnival and my pint size Ferris Wheel, isn’t it amazing?!”

The shovel lifted up and swung down again. It clanged loudly and the edge of it got stuck in the dent she had made. 

“George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. would piss on your inconsequential microscopic wheel ride!”

Her own accent was back again as she tried to pull the shovel out of the cart. It shouldn’t have been as comical as it was but she didn’t help herself when she hopped along as the cart moved with one foot placed against it for leverage. It may not have been the right thing to do, but Pete made no attempt to acknowledge her to his presence, more than half of him really wanted to see if she was going to go up with the cart on the next loop. Despite this, he stood ready to pull her down if need be. She was a foot off the ground before she wedged the shovel free and landed back on her feet. Her arms already rising over her head as she slammed the shovel down into the next cart.

He wondered if the comedy had become a tragedy and maybe H.G. Wells had, indeed, finally lost all of her mind.

“It was eighty point four meters high of steel and I can only assume this miniature, pathetic excuse of an imitation is but a metaphor for your inadequate manhood,” she huffed out as she swung the shovel once more.

She paused briefly to catch her breath.

“I mean…” Pete called out as he jumped up onto the base platform.

Helena’s hands twitched on the shovel but her reflexes were quick and she avoided hitting out at him in shock. 

“What is this,” he continued as he threw his hands out at his sides towards the ride. “A center for ants!” He waited a beat but she did not react at first.

Her gaze moved back towards the ride and then towards him. “Yes, I suppose that could be an appropriate description to add. Not necessarily biting but it will do.”

“Remind me to get you to watch Zoolander when this is all over,” he laughed.

“Zoo…land of er?“

“Don’t think about it, it will all make sense one day.” He raised his eyebrows at the shovel in her hands. “Unlike what you are currently doing at this moment.”

There was a healthy flush to her face; he noticed her hands were steadier than ever before, her eyes were alert and the line of her mouth firm. She didn’t necessarily look crazed, if anything she appeared rejuvenated. 

“I was unable to find Mr. Dark or Myka, I kept looping around and so I figured I’d try and get the bastard’s attention.”

“Sort of like an on the fly plan D, I get it.”

“Are we on plan D, already?” 

“I don’t know actually, but at least it isn’t plan Z.”

She nodded at him.

“So…” he began. “Happen to have to deal with any psychological warfare?”

“Yes, courtesy of the Dust-Witch.”

“And-“

“She’s going to be out of commission for a while.”

“How’d that happen?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He did not back down from staring at her.

“I giggled,” she murmured as she refused to make eye contact.

“What?”

“I am not repeating it.” She leveled her customary challenging gaze at him.

“Fine, fine, fine,” he relented.

“And you?” she asked.

“Took care of the clown.”

She raised one eyebrow up at him. “I got the Dust-Witch but you got a short clown. Ha.”

“Hey! Dude had really bad cigar breath and horrible manners.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I am glad to see you are in one piece.” Her words were at least sincere.

“You too.” He nodded. “Didn’t sell your soul to the devil, right?”

She shook her head. “I feel that, perhaps, Mr. Dark overestimated his desire for our souls. It appeared his tactics become less about temptation and more about eliminating us.”

“Yah, the clown mentioned that Mr. Dark has a tendency to immediately annihilate anyone he doesn’t think he can trick and will be a threat. And plus, my soul would definitely give him bad digestion,” he joked back.

There was an energy between them, a flow that was not hindered by the carnival anymore. It was almost hopeful but then again that could have been just the euphoria of his adrenaline blocking any logical thinking. He chose not to focus on that too much.

“Something tells me it was just a show,” she added.

“Obviously.”

“I mean a show for Myka, a tactic, to act as though he really didn’t want to kill us. We do seem to anger him.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“My hopeful conclusion would be that he has yet to fully gain control over Myka.”

“Let’s hold onto that.”

His eyes scanned the grounds around him but nothing moved.

“How long you been doing this?” he asked and pointed to the shovel.

“A few minutes,” she answered. “It has yet to cause a reaction.”

“I think you need to do something bigger to draw the man’s attention then whacking a shovel and insulting his manhood.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “That is what the fireworks are for.”

“Fireworks?”

“Plan E.” She nodded towards a pile of boxes on the other side of the platform.

“Where’d you find them?”

“In a utility shed. I figured if this didn’t work, go with exploding the ride right up.”

“I am honestly surprised that wasn’t your Plan D.”

“Yes, well I am trying to be less destructive and the fireworks could be unpredictable and I did not know where any of you where located. I wanted to avoid the risk at first.”

“Aw, look at you.” He smiled coyly at her.

“Stop,” she deadpanned. “I do not care for you tone.”

“All right, well then, let’s get to blowing this puppy up right into the sky.”

“Please don’t,” a tiny squeaky voice suddenly called down to them. 

Pete held his gun up in the air.

“Is the frickin’ sky talking now?!” he exclaimed.

Helena looked around them and then her gaze focused on the top of the Ferris Wheel.

“I believe the ride may have some freeloaders.”

“Please don’t shoot us,” the voice called again and two pairs of hands reached up into the air from one of the top carts that was descending.

“Or slice our heads off with that shovel,” a slightly lower voice added.

“Who is there?” Pete yelled, his gun still up. “Come up slowly. Show yourselves.”

From the depths of one of the carts, teenagers Brandon and Stacey uncurled their bodies and sat on the seat with their hands raised up. They both wore equal expressions of terror.

“Don’t move,” Pete commanded as he waited for their cart to swing down. “Is there a way to turn this thing off?” he asked Helena.

“Not that I could discern,” she replied. “The power switch appeared to be stuck.”

“Only Mr. Dark can turn them off and on,” Stacey’s quiet voice trembled as the cart they were in came along and passed them. Both Stacey and Brandon barely blinked at them; their eyes wide open, watching them both nervously as they kept their hands up in the air. They started to go back up for another loop.

“What are you two doing hiding here? She could have knocked your heads off?” Pete asked as he nodded at Helena.

“They did not make their presence know.” Helena shrugged. 

“I think I have a headache,” Brandon moaned.

“Answer the question.”

Cautiously, Stacey tilted her head down towards them so she could meet his gaze. “We were trying to hide from Mr. Dark and that-“

“Dusty bitch,” Brandon interrupted.

“Why?” Helena asked.

“Because…because he won’t let us leave, none of them will. We’re all trapped here,” Stacey cried. “And…we made him angry.”

“Join the club,” Pete replied.

“How do we know you are not in cahoots with Mr. Dark? You clearly agreed to his deal, we know you are both supposed to be older.” Helena was eyeing them suspiciously.

“We didn’t know we were agreeing!” Brandon cried out just as they were about to hit the top of the ride.

“He tricked us!” Stacey added. “We thought he was just messing around when he showed us the carousel.”

“We didn’t actually believe him, we figured we’d humor him, dude offered free rides,” Brandon continued.

“It was…fun at first,” Stacey confessed. “Unbelievable, actually.”

Brandon nodded at her and then spoke, “But then he wouldn’t let us leave, he said we had to stay with the carnival forever, that too many had slipped through the cracks already.”

“The man is crazy,” Stacey implored.

“Among other things,” Helena added coolly. 

The cart they were in was almost back and about to pass them.

“He’s going to kill us,” Brandon practically screamed. “You gotta help us. I don’t care if we have to go back to being our real age again.”

“So please don’t blow us up,” Stacey begged.

“What did you do to make him so mad?” Pete asked, he slowly lowered his gun a degree but the two kept their hands up anyways.

“Sort of the same idea as Lady Shovel Axe here, we tried to make a distraction,” Brandon spoke as he flicked a finger towards Helena. “He was not happy with us. The Tilt-a-Whirl, is more tilt and less whirl now.”

“I have a name,” Helena responded in an even cooler tone.

“Is it Her Majesty’s Lady Shovel Axe?” Brandon nervously quipped. Pete could tell the boy, the man, …the man boy had been surprised by the slip.

“Pete.” There was that cold tone somehow degrees lower. “Please raise your gun back up,” Helena finished.

Brandon gulped. “I’m sorry, it’s all these hormones, I’m not use to it, and I kept saying and doing stupid things without thinking.”

“And that’s different how from-“ Stacey begun.

“Be quiet!” he hissed back at his sister.

“It’s alright,” Pete interjected as he kept his gun low. “I think it’s a step up, she used to go by Lady Cuckoo.”

Helena’s glare was a thousand suns; he didn’t even have to turn to see it because he already felt the burn across his skin.

“Don’t mind me, I will just be over here stacking these fireworks up and lighting the fuse at once,” Helena spoke up.

“Noooo!” Brandon and Stacey called out.

“She’s joking.” He looked to Helena and nodded at her. “Right?”

The eyes of a snake were locked onto him. Helena did not move from her spot though. He laughed nervously. “She’s just joking guys,” he yelled up. “She actually is working on her destructive impulses, so lucky you!”

“Enough about me. I would really like to find Myka, so if we could move on quickly,” Helena said and then asked, “How did Mr. Dark turn you younger?”

“The carousel-“ Stacey began only to be interrupted by Helena.

“No, I mean did you see him do anything to the carousel itself, was he holding anything in his hand as he powered it?”

“Like something really old?” Pete added. “Or odd. Or even something of the every day variety but he wouldn’t part with it.”

“I feel like that covers way more ground than you think, normal but maybe not? How the hell would we know?” Brandon questioned and Pete could here the panic edging itself into his voice.

“You have no idea,” Pete replied. “Try dealing with it for a living.”

“No, we didn’t,” Stacey hurried to reply, no doubt spurred on by Helena’s look of impatience. “He just flipped the switch and then waved his hand in the air backwards.”

“The carousel was not an artifact on its own and if he used nothing to activate it…” Helena trailed off.

“Then we most likely are dealing with an artifact that has the power to do more than just one thing,” Pete added. “Even if it’s like Claudia said, if it’s something commonplace that Bradbury owned, how could something like a pen or even a toothbrush have the power to do all this?! How is any of it possible?”

Helena tilted her head in thought. Her eyes widened and she looked at Pete with alarm. “What if…”

“What?” he snapped when she trailed off.

She stepped closer towards him, her hands motioning in the air between them. “What if there was an original artifact tied to Mr. Bradbury and somehow it getting mixed up with Jim Williams’ already inspired carnival, the combination of the two was able to create such a source of power, that that power then infused with the emotions of hundreds and hundreds of people on a daily basis and caused other artifacts to form maybe and further allow…or a even just an expanding-“

“Like a mother artifact giving birth to tiny little baby artifacts?!” Pete blurted out. “That would be insane. This is insane. All of this.” He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders. “It’s insane. How are we supposed to find and stop…” he trailed off, his eyes darting past her as he felt panic settling back in.

“Think about it,” she began quietly. “We know artifacts need surges of emotion to form and this carnival is a walking minefield of building emotion, with just a little push, who knows what could have formed.”

“I feel like Ripley when she’s on the ship infested with multiplying aliens and all those sacs waiting to burst, never knowing where and…and she has poor Jones with her…trying to save them and get out alive and…Jonesy…” he trailed off.

Helena grabbed the shirt of his collar and pulled him closer, her face just in front of his.

“If I recall, Ripley and Jones the cat were able to get free so pull it together, Lattimer.”

He swallowed dryly and nodded at her. “Right, sorry.” He coughed and pulled back. 

“It is but a theory,” Helena added. “We will not know until we confront Mr. Dark.”

“Right.” His hand smoothed out the collar of his shirt. “Wait…how did you know what I was talking about with Jonesy and-“

“I may have spent some of my downtime going over the history of Science Fiction in other media formats. I was not thrilled with the film adaptations of my work but found certain other films in the genre to have adequate merit.”

“Oh, my, god, if we get out of this alive, please, please can we have an Aliens marathon, have you seen the whole series?”

“Not ‘if’, Peter, and pull it together, you are starting to get distracted again.”

“Crap, sorry, I guess that can still happen.” He shook his head back and forth.

“We will not be completely free of the carnivals hold until we neutralize the artifact or artifacts. So let us focus on how to find Mr. Dark and Myka right now.”

“Myka,” he whispered. There was something else on the edge of his tongue but he couldn’t get it to come out.

He smacked his palm against his forehead. It still wouldn’t come. He hit his head again and then again.

“Pete,” Helena cried out as she tried to stop him.

“No! Wait!” he called as he backed up. “I gotta, I gotta remember something.”

Myka and Mr. Dark. What had it been? …Mr. Dark… 

And then the piece he had, started to slide back in place at the front of his mind.

“I know where they are!”

He jumped on the spot. “The clown, I got him to confess, he didn’t know much about how Mr. Dark was doing his mojo but he said he was at the main attraction tent right in the center of the carnival. He said that was where Myka would be too. That’s why I was coming here.”

“But this is the center of the carnival, right here and they aren’t here,” Helena countered. “The Ferris Wheel it’s-“

“Actually no,” Stacey’s timid voice called out.

Both Helena and Pete turned to look at her. He shared a look with Helena just before looking back. Yes, they indeed had forgotten about their company. Not a good sign.

Brandon and Stacey still had their hands up in the air.

“What do you mean no?” he asked. “If there’s a main attraction tent why have we never heard of it?”

“If Mr. Dark didn’t want you to know of it then you wouldn’t, you could walk right by it and have no idea.” 

“Look, there is a lot of freaky stuff that’s been going on, stuff I could have never imagined and will hopefully try and forget if we make it out of this,” Brandon spoke up. “But I can tell you there’s a trick to finding your way around here.”

“Notice how you get lost or repeat yourself,” Stacey added. “The tent that Mr. Dark hangs out in most of the time is past all the games and then across from the Beer Tent. That really is the center of the carnival.”

“Are you kidding me?” Pete blurted out. “I was just there.”

“Yah, but you didn’t know what you were looking for,” Stacey replied. “You remember how you got from there to here right?”

Pete recounted his steps and nodded. 

“Well the trick is, you have to get your thoughts on something else without losing focus,” Brandon continued. “If the carnival senses your true want, it will move everything around.

“What?”

“Okay, so you know where you want to go, you know what you are looking for, you keep that idea of it, you focus on it, but any thoughts on the surface you need to pretend like you are looking for the horse stables or something.”

“Throw the mojo of the carnival’s pull off,” Helena concluded.

“Exactly.” Brandon nodded. “Mr. Dark will know you are coming if you don’t trick him somehow and he will just keep you wandering around.”

“All right, everyone stop talking,” Pete commanded. “Right now, we focus on the plan of searching the horse stables for a possible way to escape. Because we all totally want to get out of here and don’t care about anyone else. We are all in this together but not.”

Three heads nodded back at him.

“Wait, no, you two, you need to go cause some more destruction, draw his attention-“

“No way! He will kill us or the Dust Witch will.”

“The Dust Witch has been taken care of,” Helena supplied.

“Come on, guys, you made a mistake but you can help us fix this, you’ve already lived a few decades to know regrets are the worst.”

“What are you, a walking Hallmark Card?” Brandon quipped.

Pete narrowed his eyes at him.

“Sorry, hormones.” Brandon raised his hands even higher. “We will do what you say. We will help.”

“Good.” He turned to Helena. “Ready?”

“Yes, let us leave this place for good.”

They two of them jumped off the platform. “We are going to get out of this, Jonesy,” he added with a sly wink.

“I am not the cat,” Helena corrected as she took a step forward.

Pete hung his head. “No, you are probably right,” he murmured and followed her.

 

Horses. 

Stables. 

The horse stables. 

Horses are a great way to make a fast speedy escape. 

Horsies. 

The equine species.

The animals that neighed.

Seabiscuit. 

…biscuits…cookies…

NOPE.

Racehorses. Racehorses would be very helpful for escaping.

Pete’s head was getting pretty full of the specific topic. _Myka._ **HORSES.**

“Do you know how to ride?” Helena asked, her voice breaking the silence that had fallen as they half ran.

“A little. My dad took me when I was younger.”

“Any good?”

“You’re supposed to ride with the saddle under the horse right?”

“I see then.”

“Part of your posh up bringing?”

“For the first few years of my life but then as with many things, once I was of a certain age it was considered unladylike.”

“And did that stop you?”

She responded with one raised eyebrow.

“Of course not,” he half chuckled.

He spotted a familiar landmark just ahead. “Here we are.”

They stopped their run as they both caught their breath.

“The horses though?” Helena asked as she glanced around.

A muffling noise passed between them but they ignored it.

“Not here anymore, apparently,” Pete cried out, with perhaps too much fake despair.

The noise started to get louder.

“Damn!” Helena snapped. 

She was by far a better actor than he was.

The strangled muffled noise picked up speed.

“Oh, would you shut up,” Helena snapped. Her body turning towards the clown that Pete had left tied up against one of the beer tent’s poles with a gag of cloth in his mouth. He did not look happy.

“Look,” Pete whispered as he tilted his head just across from them. “Those weren’t there before.” 

A patch of statues that he had never seen before led to a large black tent in the distance. The black of the tent was darker than any of the previous ones; it was almost an illusion the way it blended into the night but now that they knew where it was supposed to be they knew not to file it away as just a mirage.

And before the clown could get on their nerves any further they raced across the lot. Pete tried to calm any flash of eagerness, he feared if he blinked the tent would disappear.

The statues that met them were an odd sort of mix; some were of a Roman or Greek design, some recognizable of a design similar to the romantic age, then even a few modern pieces of blobs, mixtures of marble and plaster, like the lawn of some emperor’s garage sale. They appeared to be randomly placed about but eventually a winding path formed between them and Pete and Helena followed the trail towards the tent. The closer they got, the more the trail narrowed and then, how the statues changed. The artistic barriers around them become of the wax variety. Human statues of wax gathered around them, a very freaky lifelike art show.

“I think…” Helena’s voice trembled noticeably. 

He turned to look at her. The other woman’s gaze was locked on one particular wax statue beside them, his arms up in a position of protection and a strangled look of horror carved into his face.

“This is the owner of the diner by the motel,” she gasped. “I’m sure of it.”

Pete looked around at the rest of the very human like wax figures. “Should we assume then that all of these statues are…” he trailed off, not wanting to finish his sentence. “Jeez, even an artifact that turns people to...”

“I do not know if this place is reproducing artifacts,” Helena said. “But whatever it is, it needs to be stopped.”

“It’s like a super artifact.” He leaned in to look at one of the very life like eyes of the statue beside him.

Blue lightning cracked in the sky just over them. He jumped back.

“That was not natural,” Helena voiced.

Pete found his voice stalling in his throat. It wasn’t the lightning that had caused him to jump back. The statue’s eye had blinked.

His back bumped into Helena and he looked out of the corner of his eye towards the sky over the tent where splinters of blue light were dazzling it.

“Something tells me, we are in the right place,” Helena added.

Pete had yet to take his eye off of the statues.

“Let’s move then, back to back.”

“What?” Helena asked in confusion.

Lightning crashed again, the blue unnatural light casting a spotlight over them.

“Oh god,” Pete gasped. 

The arms of the diner owner’s statue had moved.

“I saw that,” Helena whispered. She immediately pushed her back against his and they quickly walked towards the tent’s entrance. 

The closer they got, the more trapped they became by the statues, the path narrowing just barely for one person to squeeze through.

One statue’s wax fingers glazed across Pete’s face and he stifled a half-scream. He now walked in front, the path forcing them to walk no longer sideways. 

“I don’t want to alarm you,” Helena’s quiet voice called over his shoulder. “But the path we just came from is blocked.”

He chanced a glance over his shoulder and saw what she meant; three statues had moved and blocked the way they had come.

“Well good for them,” he hissed. “We don’t want to go back anyways, we want to go forward.”

“I will tell them that,” Helena added. “Maybe they are just being thoughtful.”

The blue light blew the sky up again and the glare forced Pete to cover his face. When he brought his arm down he was unable to hold the scream in. Two wax statues with disturbing expressions hovered over him with their arms outstretched.

At that moment though another half of the sky lit up with an array of colors and than several loud explosions followed that rocked the ground. Both Pete and Helena fell over, as did the statues around them. Part of him was concerned he was about to see the human statues crack into a million little pieces, but the wax people just made a small clunk sound as they fell over.

“Thank god,” he whispered.

Fireworks fought for space in the sky as the lightning continued to write itself in the atmosphere as it burst from the roof of the tent.

A piece of the tent’s fabric flapped just in front of him and he helped Helena to her feet as they both leapt forward towards the opening.

“I really hope those two kids didn’t blow themselves up doing that.” He turned to Helena as he pulled a piece of the tent’s fabric up.

“Don’t be silly,” she replied. The well-known look of strength that could sometimes be misconstrued for cockiness was in full blast; she was getting ready for the battle before them. “They had adult supervision.”

He nodded at her with a sly smirk. “Let’s do this then.”


	14. Chapter 14

>   
>  “Death doesn't exist. It never did, it never will. But we've drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we've got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness. Nothing.”  
> 

Myka wondered when it was, when the exact moment of it had occurred, how had it come to be she had been swayed into the current of the carnival.

Could she pinpoint the beginning?

Had it been as soon as she’d crossed under Mr. Electro’s sign?

Was that too early to give credit?

Had she merely ventured into the pond and then sunk to the boggy depths without knowing and when she’d emerged again a river had been her only way to go onward?

Powerless. 

That was what she was. Just like nature, she had no choice but follow its plan, it’s pattern and so she flowed upon the current, she swayed against its force.

Defenseless.

And wasn’t the way her life had gone, had adapted. Just like nature. To be random and to be filled with patterns. Contradictions at every turn. A sense of order merely a soothing balm. 

The flood had opened up long ago inside of her, a stream she was incapable of stopping.

Because when had the moment been, the second of conception, the instant that traitorous cell had multiplied inside.

Could she recall any of it?

She had thought she had nothing left to pass, a bare canyon now, all that was left when the water gave and passed.

But here she was, drifting…back again…a current she had been swept into…

Her head breached the surface and she…

“Huhhhh,” she gasped. 

The fog that cocooned her head had separated and Myka found herself struggling.

“Huhhmphh,” she gasped again, her body moving in reaction but something was preventing her from fully gaining any traction.

She blinked twice, closed her eyes and breathed deeply, she willed her fingers to move and they did. She felt them curl around an armrest all on her own.

When she opened her eyes again, her head felt clearer, her eyes taking in the unfamiliar scene before her. Her arms were strapped down to the armrests of a large chair, a chair she felt her spine digging right against due to the strap around her forehead that was attached to its tall back and held her in place. She moved her feet but found her ankles were locked against the legs of the chair as well.

In front of her lay a murky blue darkness. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust and she saw she was sitting on a large circle like stage. Moonlight was nature’s spotlight as it beamed in from a sizeable hole up high. Black fabric draped away from the light, angles of darkness here and there, a tent of some height and length she could not decipher. The edges of moonlight did not pass beyond the stage, she squinted her eyes but without any further light it was a futile action in trying to make sense of what else lay in the shadows.

The last thing she could remember was being thrown by the Dust-Witch and Mr. Dark approaching her.

Why couldn’t she remember anything else?

For the first time, in a very long time, a sense of panic, just a trickle, but a sense nonetheless edged itself into her blood.

She always remembered.

How long had it been since that confrontation?

She struggled against the bindings at her wrists that were a thick sort of leather and dug into her skin, the straps barely leaving any space to move.

What had happened to Pete and Helena?

The straps rubbed and started to cut through her skin as her movements became more frantic.

Were they too late in finding the artifact? Had the carnival already won?

She tried kicking her feet out, the bindings at her ankles giving a bit and then snapping back.

She couldn’t remember.

“Damn it!” she seethed as she fought against her shackles, her thoughts running rampant.

She should never have come.

She should have known better.

She used to know better.

But…

No! A voice called in her head, whatever it had been; it was not worth the lives of Pete and Helena.

She had never meant for…

…her head started to feel heavy again, the scene in front of her started to blur and then there was only darkness…

…she opened her eyes…

…And met two orbs of black, two spinning circles that were endless, like moving bullet holes upon the night’s darkness.

“Thank you for joining us,” Mr. Dark spoke softly, his face hovering over hers.

“What have you done you bastard!?” she yelled, her body jerking against the binds. 

For a brief second, the self-confident smirk on his face wobbled.

“I know you may not be happy about your current predicament, but I promise you it is for your own good.” 

“I didn’t agree to any of this!”

“Shhh, shhh,” he cooed. He waved his hand in front of her face and she felt the roaring sea again, a big wave that sent her under and she relaxed against the chair.

“I find you may be more agreeable if we were to finish the conversation we had started earlier tonight,” he continued. “I am more than willing to give.”

The measure of waves slapping back and forth echoed inside of her but just over it she could hear the music, the calliope, a tune that still beckoned. She jerked against the seat and gasped again. 

Uncharacteristically, Mr. Dark jerked back as well.

“Stop doing that,” she hissed, her clear eyes focusing on him.

His hands fumbled in the air for a moment before he clutched them behind his back and mocked bow. “I only wished to make you more comfortable.”

She laughed. “I think that would be a more possible reality if you were to untie me from this chair.”

The dance was back as his eyes glimmered with mirth. “Do you recognize the chair?” The back of his hands flared his coattails out and they flapped in the air as he stepped aside and revealed a large mechanical switch set in wood with a thick black cord that traveled from it to the chair she was sitting in.

“This your version of the Act of Electro?” she murmured.

Mr. Dark frowned at her lack of enthusiasm. 

Myka rolled her eyes. The more time she spent in his company, the quicker the air of mystery was overcome by desperation. It reeked off of the man, a man who needed an audience always, an endless supply of feedback or who knew, perhaps he would simply no longer exist. Maybe it was that easy.

The carnival was a mystery; it did not necessarily make the man as well. 

“You do know it’s supposed to be E-l-e-c-t-r-i-c-o?” she threw back. “Couldn’t even get that right could you?”

Anger curled around his eyes as the small wrinkles that were there creased and his eyes narrowed. The look was gone in a flash as he clapped his hands and smiled his dark smile.

“Copyright reasons?” he shrugged. “No matter, mistakes and missteps were taken but now, more and more the carnival grows.” He spun around and leant his arms over hers. “Fiction no more.”

“I am no Mr. Cooger,” she replied.

“I don’t need a Mr. Cooger for my act of Electro or Electrico.” He licked his lips and stretched his smile. “You will be so much more.” He reached up and cupped her cheek and she tried to turn away but the strap held her in place. “I just thought you of all people would enjoy the nod.”

Swiftly, he stood up and stepped away, he spun again outward to the darkness and as he turned back to her he pulled his blue glowing dagger from his inner jacket pocket. The dagger grew bigger and bigger, the blue light sparking as it’s size doubled and doubled, until it was the familiar sword she had seen on the first day. He pointed the illuminated sword up towards the hole above them and blue lightning burst out of it and up towards the sky. He pulled his hand back and then he pushed the sword up again and each time the blue supernatural light crackled and zinged higher and further into the atmosphere.

“Now this,” he paused as he brought the glowing sword right below his own face, the light casting demonic shadows in the curves on his face. He remained untouched by the lightning. “This is but a parlor trick compared to the real deal.”

He shoved the sword into the ground below them and it remained glowing like the sword in the stone waiting to be plucked. Shoots of sapphire bursting up every now and then.

Mr. Dark’s fingers playfully hovered over the large switch attached to her chair. “This I’m afraid would leave quite a shock.”

“You showed me your toy, and wow, I was very amused and enlightened, now let me go.” 

Myka rolled her wrists again. She’d had tons of practice dealing with egomaniacs and despite the situation she found, when it came down to it, they were mostly all the same, they wanted you to be easily impressed.

“I wonder,” the man began as he danced upon the stage, his own Gene Kelly routine, he was just missing the lamppost and rain. “Are you capable of feeling fear anymore, Myka Bering?”

“What?”

Before he could respond a loud cascading boom broke through the air, Mr. Dark’s steps faltered and then another explosion followed and another. He stopped his dance and turned to stare off behind him. The fists at his side curled.

“Ungrateful twits!” he seethed. He nodded at something in the dark and then turned back around towards her with a forceful smile splashed across his face. “Honestly, how can I be expected to do everything around here?” His voice grew louder as he spoke, his arms out wide gesturing off stage. “How can I not take retribution when people throw the gifts I give them back in my face!”

He closed his eyes and breathed in deep. He started to roll his right sleeve up and upon it was a collage of different tattooed faces, most of them fully detailed with vibrant colors. His other hand hovered over the decorated arm.

Myka knew no good could come of his next action.

“What do you mean about fear?” she called out.

He remained focused on his task at hand and she watched as the tattoos began to slide and move upon his skin. He was searching for one in particular and the tattoos moved about, stretching and twisting out of the way on his skin like Dali’s dripping clocks, until a few began to snap back in place, the proportions righting themselves.

“Tell me,” she said as she jerked against the bonds.

She wasn’t sure but she thought she saw the face of Stacey Keystone in the crook of his elbow.

“TELL ME!” she screamed desperately.

Mr. Dark slowly opened his eyes and looked at her. 

“Tell you what?”

“You already know,” she spat back as she tried to keep her eyes aligned with his, tried to pull his attention. 

He did not pull his sleeve back down but he did step closer towards her. “I want to hear you say it,” he drawled back, the eager hungry smile back in place. “You tell me.”

“Where are Helena and Pete?” she responded instead. “First…let them go.”

“And what? You will give yourself over in turn?” He started to laugh and then he paused, his eyes trailing up her body, toes to head and he leaned in to push a stray curl back. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Which one?” she huffed out.

“So many unvoiced ones, but all the same, they sit there, in the air between us.” He pulled back a bit, his voice booming around them. “I ask you, Myka Bering, what is it to not feel fear?”

He jumped on the spot. “What was it like to live and not feel, to not feel anything until you walked upon the soil of my carnival?”

She sucked in a shuddering breath.

He leaned over her again, his arms laying over hers and holding onto the armrests as he held his body up in the air just off the ground. “I could feel you when you entered the grounds, you said everyone is a vessel of goods for me, and I suppose that is true to some extent but the even bigger truth is when I find an actual vessel, a vessel to give to more than I ever could to anyone else. Who can give back just as well.”

“I don’t understand.”

He dropped his feet back on the ground and slowly started to undo the buttons on his shirt.

“How long have you been lying to yourself?” he countered.

And there it was, a piece of kindling thrown and she felt the fire, the burning inside of her start to flare again.

“I don’t care for your games,” she spat furiously.

“But you do,” he crooned as he stalled his fingers. “Why else would you want to know, why it is, that it is only when you are in the carnival that you feel even half-alive?”

Her spine was rigid against the back of the chair, but it was not just because of the binds but the anger that hummed in her bones slowly snapping every limb to attention.

“Anywhere else and you’re just a walking ghost, but then you came to my carnival and now there is a fire, there is righteous anger, there is heat where there had only been frost, there is a stronger beat to your lifeline and…I gave you that.”

He tipped his head towards her. “But you already suspected that, that’s why you came, what your curiosity was and so I will tell you what I know.”

The choreography he only knew played itself out across the stage as he suddenly began to dance again and he held his arms out towards the shadows.

“I shall tell all what I know!” he yelled out and then lights flared to life above them, real spotlights rigged up above them burned bright and Myka had to close her eyes against the glare.

“You don’t want me to take away that gift of rebirth do you?” Mr. Dark’s voice called out. “I want you to think about that when you are presented with a choice.”

She blinked harshly against the light and it took a moment before she was able to open her eyes fully. 

She heard a scuffle break out behind her.

“Myka!” She heard two familiar voices call out.

She tried to turn her head towards where she heard Pete and Helena but the chair restricted her movements. But it wasn’t just her partners who had apparently joined them, the new light revealed an audience, a quiet, watching audience of the carnival’s workers and victims, the freaks noticeably scattered here and there, their faces more mournful than the others. Even the Elastic Man appeared different; there was barely an expression on his face and drool dripped from his lips. 

“Pete?!” she called out, her voice trembling against her will. “H.G!”

She heard a gasp and then the sound of a punch making contact with flesh.

“Do you have them?” Mr. Dark asked just past her.

“They aren’t going anywhere, I’ve got them,” the voice of the Strong Man replied. “They have a gun and a funny looking-.”

“Throw them away.”

“Yes, Mr. Dark.”

And Myka could imagine it, clear as day, after he tossed the guns, his big gigantic hands latched around Helena and Pete, maybe he was even holding them off the ground. Any wrong move and he would snap their necks. Maybe his palms were wrapped around their faces, slowly suffocating them.

“Well, I am surprised you two didn’t cave in and quite disappointed to see my companions were not able to…deal with you,” Mr. Dark drawled. “But no matter, you are both of no importance at this time or anymore.”

His eyes locked back onto Myka’s.

“From your inquiring before, I can only gather that you and your lot are quite familiar with objects of…surprising effect.”

“Why don’t you hand over your object of such effect?” Myka snapped back.

“Would you do me the same then? I show you mine, you show me yours.”

Myka’s entire body went still, her struggle freezing as she caught the mischievous look in the man’s bottomless eyes, a look that went on and on.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Oh, Myka, Myka, now is not the time to hide the truth, not anymore, not when we said we’d tell.”

She remained silent.

“Silence will not help your friends.” He danced a two-step across from her. “You see, I don’t even need you to admit it, I’d like you to, but I already know.”

“Know what?” She eyed him wearily.

“Well, isn’t it a bit hypocritical to ask me to stop using my gifted object, when you yourself have been…” he paused as he leaned over her. “Would you say, cursed or blessed by your own?” When she did not reply he continued, “Let’s say, you yourself are only walking because of such a thing, an object.”

A strange calm came over her, nothing like the foggy haze Mr. Dark liked to throw her into, but a relaxed sort of knowing quiet.

“How would you know that?” She raised her chin up as she watched the man move about. She was thankful she could still hear the ruffling of Pete and Helena’s clothing as they struggled in their captor’s grasp. At least they were still breathing.

“I sense things in all my customers, and would you be surprised to find that they are all mostly the same, the same wants and needs, the same secrets and truths, boring acts of greed and lust, innocence that has been tainted and wishes to be whole, the usual web of humanity’s trials that repeats itself through time and time again. And don’t mistake me, I am quite thankful for it, but…”

He walked towards the still sparking sword in the ground, his hand grasping it’s handle and the lightning stopped but there the sword remained in the ground just glowing. Mr. Dark had his back to all of them as he stood before his sword.

“But…” he continued and trailed off. Slowly, he turned back to them, his hand cradling his chin in a dramatic pose of the thinking man. “But to put it in perspective, you three walk in and I find myself with a drunken fool, nothing new there, but lots to play with. And then…”

He snapped his finger past Myka. 

“Something new for sure, the Dust-Witch sensed it, a woman out of her time, very interesting, but then you see, same old story, fractured mind, sins of regret and blood…such fun really.” He paused to shrug. “But not original, even with the time travel. And I was never really an H.G. Wells fan so… and after all this and my carnival, very little surprises.”

He brought his hands together in front of him, as he looked her head on.

“But you…you I couldn’t even feel anything off of you at first.”

The audience remained still, silent and watchful. 

“And that had never happened before.”

“And there was me, not even winning Queen of the carnival despite my specialty,” she responded, her tone even tempered.

“I have a different crown for you,” he replied, his tone a tad bit too serious.

She laughed a funny sort of laugh at his grandiosity. 

“The Dust-Witch she sensed something further. She thought you were mocking her,” he continued. With swift feet he stepped to her again, a constant give and pull but now he settled between her legs as he stood beside her. The chair was impressively tall and large and so even as he stood, their gazes were almost level.

“There is a different rhythm inside of you, that is how I know you have been altered. It is unnatural. A surprising effect.”

Myka had a sudden strange image of Pete calling back “The Rhythm is Gonna Get You”. It seemed like the thing he might do if given the chance. Again a serene sort of laugh came out of her.

Mr. Dark’s lips were a thin line as his smile was caught between a frown.

“Your lifeline, if you want to even call it that,” he spoke, his voice was sharp and almost threatening, but then the smile slipped back in place. “It is different than anyone else here.”

“Do I get a lucky star?”

“I thought he was the comedian of the group,” Mr. Dark replied as he nodded behind her.

“We take turns.” She shrugged her head as best she could. “It’s called team work.”

“The tempo…” he continued and then his voice became softer as he started to quote the known text, “A sooty calliope clamoring, banging three different hymns mixed and lost, maybe not there at all…” 

He moved his hands softly in the air between them. 

“…Brass bells, the drums, hammered his chest, revved his heart so he felt his pulse reverse, his blood turn back in perverse thrusts through all his flesh, so he was nearly shaken free to fall…”

He raised his hand over her heart and she glared at him but he was unfazed.

“That backwards Funeral March.”

She felt a strange heat growing between her chest and his hand.

“Chopin,” she breathed out evenly. “The carousel plays it backwards when it goes back.”

“Yes, but you have no use of the carousel, you have already beat death, you already turn back from the funeral.”

He closed his palm and stepped back. “So you can see why I would be curious.”

“Lots of people have near death experiences.”

Mr. Dark’s smile grew. “That is true, but we both know what I mean. You cheated. You are not supposed to be here. There was not supposed to be anything just near about it.”

She heard a struggle break out behind her followed by muffled curses and gasps.

“You shut up!” Pete’s voice called out. “You don’t get to say-“

Myka winced slightly as the sound of Pete getting knocked in the face carried over.

“Contain them!” Mr. Dark ordered. He turned back to her. “The carnival sensed it in you, a similar tune and so Myka, that is why you feel the way you do. Why everything flares stronger inside you, why the fire rolls, you have a symbiotic relationship with the carnival.”

“I don’t recall Mykes saying yes to going steady with the carnival and plus I don’t think she’s into that inanimate love kind of thing, because if anything I think she’d marry a library first before a carnival,” Pete called out, his voice struggling but clear all the same.

“Would you shut him up,” Mr. Dark snapped.

“He keeps moving too much, I can’t cover his mouth and keep him still,” the Strong Man replied.

Mr. Dark rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to have a moment here,” he called back. “Gag him if you have too.”

“If I try that, the other one will slip out,” the Strong Man countered. “She’s…wily and she keeps trying to bite me and knee me in the groin.”

“Pull it together or maybe you will find you won’t be so strong anymore.”

“Yes, Mr. Dark.”

“Where was I…” he murmured to himself.

“Being dark and…mysterious,” Myka replied, her tone though, her tone now carried a slight edge but her body remained still. “And something along the lines of all-knowing.”

“Oh, not all-knowing, I’d still like to know what it is that you used. As I said, I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours. I mean a magical carnival is one thing, but to cheat death…that’s power.”

“I think that’s a bit greedy isn’t it?” she replied. “Is that your version of having it all?”

He chuckled deeply and didn’t bother answering her as he continued, “You may have won a round against the clock but something was stolen from you all the same. You think of it as less. You as less. And I thought maybe that was true, as at first there wasn’t much there, it was a murky sort of vacuum, but then I heard the tempo and then as the song aligned in you, as it grew, there it was buried deep, all that anger, that fire and bitterness, that raw essence.”

He spun around again and slid across the floor as he turned back to her. “Anger is quite simple in it’s meaning and execution but for everyone it can be different. Agent Wells for example, oh, anger sits right there on the surface, why it’s her old friend, it’s a shield and protection but you, Myka, you bury it deep, you hide it and you hide from it. Sternness that may seem similar but it is a distant cousin to the ire of rage. And oh what fun it is to pull it to the surface.”

He started to pace the floor in front of them. “So much to choose from, there’s anger at Mr. Lattimer, why he took away your right to die.”

She jolted in her seat, the heat growing; the calm was starting to pass much like the calm before a thundering storm.

“Be quiet,” she hissed. “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

“And Agent Wells…well…I don’t even have the time to get into all of that but that barely needed a push at all.”

The buzzing of one of the overhead lights started to become louder, the noise of it over taking Mr. Dark’s speech.

“And-“ But before he continued one of the spotlights blew, the glass breaking and the embers sizzling. Shards of glass fell just beside where Mr. Dark was standing.He looked at it with open surprise.

“Huh,” he murmured and then looked at Myka and tried to cover it up with a laugh.

“Stop…and I can’t believe I have to say this, stop literally dancing around,” she said. “Get to the point.”

“But there’s been so many points that I have already made.”

“Yes, and you did so well with your monologue, now why don’t you lay it out what you want me to do. Put your deal on the table.”

“Myka, Myka, fine, fine, if you don’t want to share, so be it, but I’ll still get something out of it.”

“Yes, that’s basically what I just said.”

His smile faltered.

A muffled voice called from behind them.

“Ow!” the Strong Man cried out. “Sharp teeth!”

“Is it just me, Pete and Myka, or is Mr. Dark starting to lose his edge a bit,” Helena’s steady voice spoke up.

“It is starting to feel a little basic,” Pete added and then gasped as it sounded like the Strong Man was squeezing him to death. “Hey…ease up…buddy.”

“She bit me!”

Unexpectedly, Mr. Dark took a moment to pinch the top of his nose as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

“You little bitch!” the Strong Man whined more than yelled.

“Get your…hands off of me you big…over grown oaf,” Helena replied as the sounds of their struggle continued.

“WOULD YOU JUST SNAP THEIR NECKS ALREADY!” Mr. Dark bellowed, a hurried sort of rage exploding on his face.

“NO!” Myka yelled out, her body tugging against the seat’s straps. “You kill them and I promise you that you will get nothing and I won’t stop until I destroy this carnival.”

The lights above them started to sizzle again.

The skin on her face started to feel warm.

Slowly, but assuredly the suave trickster smile found its way back to his face. “But what I’m I to do when they just will not stay away?”

“I’m sure you have the power to make them…forget…to displace them.”

“Myka, no!” Pete yelled. “Don’t-“

Mr. Dark’s eyes moved past the chair. “There, finally, you have learned how to use both your hands to subdue them like an actual Strong Man, thank you.”

“Yes, Mr. Dark,” the freak droned.

His eyes slid back to her. “Don’t worry, they’re fine…for now.”

“Just-“ she began but he interrupted her with a dramatic sigh.

“I wish it were that easy, you think highly of my gifts but what do you think I have been trying to do all this time as well. Dividing the three of you…has not been…easy. Well, no, it is easy at times but the problem is that it does not stick. The three you, unfortunately, have wound yourselves together. It is quite annoying and…unexpected. So, you see the problem that we face.”

Myka’s eyes darted towards the audience but no one moved, no one spoke, not one eye blinked or twitched and they might as well have been alone.

“Perhaps,” Mr. Dark said. “If we make our deal, you can help me with ensuring your friends their safety.”

“What deal?”

Three smooth steps and he was standing right in front of her again. “I really am merely being polite, because, truly the deal has already been made. You just need to take the next step, just give in that last little bit.”

“What do you mean?” she questioned, her chest pushing out as angry breaths exhaled. Piques of curiosity began to steady them.

“Your soul…” He reached up and finished undoing the first few buttons on his shirt. His fingers began to pull the fabric of the shirt back and Myka’s breath caught in her throat. “Why, it’s already mine.”

There across the stretch of his skin did Myka meet a crude reflection. Inked membrane that stood out from the other faces that moved about, silent mouths screaming, eyes blinking and noses twitching, but they were but patches to the picture that drew itself upon his upper chest. For a moment all Myka could be was transfixed by the tattoo of herself, detailed lines of ink drawing the points of her face with every crease, every eyelash that she had.

“Huh,” she half laughed and as her lips moved in a sort of surprised smile so did the inked lips open in a smile.

But it was not the lines themselves and their abnormally detailed design that presented the true spectacle, no, it was the vibrancy, the intensity, the saturation of the swirls of color that made it a true beauty of art, a true copy. 

Tints, shades and pigments one was only used to seeing in everyday life upon the faces of people, the way they changed in the light, the way the shadows grew or lessened with a turn or a tilt of the head this way and that, that was all somehow there painted upon Mr. Dark’s skin. The smooth youthful skin of his forever an absorbing canvas.

But it was just not the size of the face that gave her pause; there were other differences to be marked in comparison to the other illustrated souls that coated his flesh. The colors of her face they continued to move and spots of the tattoo remained unfilled, the colors splashing across her face with no order, some of the colors bleeding out of the lines, colors floating and moving as they seeped past the outline of her cheeks. The tattoo was not entirely done but seemingly in an entire state of flux. 

The eyes of her tattooed double, they gave her further pause, for there was both a familiar and foreign look in them, they were dark and haunting. The green of them, the green she knew was not present, the shade of them was the darkest shade of a thick pine forest hanging under a night sky, black and green blending and spiraling.

“You’ve already let so much in, Myka and in return I have marked the act. You took that spark and you blew it up and you let the carnival in and I was free to take.”

Her fingers contorted themselves, joints locking and bending, hot anger threw her body into gear, she forced her fingers to coil and she clenched her fists as she glared at the man.

Flares of new colors, bright new hues started to ooze from nowhere in the middle of her tattoo.

Mr. Dark looked down and smirked easily.

But despite the new ink, the colors still refused to align themselves, they continued to drain out onto the rest of what little unmarked skin he had, pale skin remained in patches on her face. 

“I didn’t…” she paused, her breath becoming short, her head began to feel hot and itchy, she was seething. “I didn’t agree to any…” she had to trail off as she felt the urge to grip the armrests, her nails had started to draw blood.

“You wanted to feel and so my carnival made it so. The more you felt the more the carnival grew and gave in return.”

With a harsh pull against her binds she lashed out at him, they still caught her but the chair gave a whine of protest. “You had no right.”

Mr. Dark’s response was to only smirk wider. “Do you think it makes you a freak?” He slowly began to do up a button.

Myka noted there were two black straps that were covered by most of his shirt but started somewhere from near his neck and she wondered oddly why he was wearing suspenders under his shirt. Pete was right; the man really was a pretentious twit. She followed his movements as he did up two more buttons before he tilted his chin down at her. He even sported a set of skull cufflinks on his dark suit and she really was becoming stuck between abject horror and mocking disgust and her emotions were already going through whiplash. 

“Is that it?”

“What?” she almost half growled, surprising even herself.

“To feel human again, does that make you a freak in your eyes?”

If her body wasn’t in such a sudden state of motion fighting against restriction and sudden uncontrollable anger, Myka felt it would have been the appropriate time for an eye roll. She wondered if Mr. Dark had been so apt for dramatic prose and overcompensation in the book.

Again, she had to remember, she had to try and think, and recall, were there clues to be made on how all this was happening? Something in the story itself?

Surely, this was more than mere role-playing. Was there a Jim Williams in the man before her somewhere? She thought maybe she could see it, the moments of his fumbling, his frowns and his missteps, even his too eager enthusiasm for the dress and part, but when faced with an audience full of artifact induced victims and her own circumstances mixed with Pete and Helena’s, what hope did they have?

No matter her own issues, she knew that it was important not to lose focus.

“Myka, my dear Myka, are you still with me?”

She locked eyes with the dark and felt the focus but again it started to bleed out and pool into a form of gasoline that made the rage flutter to the surface. It made the cold shell she found that constantly hovered around her begin to melt.

Was this the reaction of two artifacts coming into play, mixing and then combusting?

She shook her head and tried to clear her thoughts.

“You talk too much,” she huffed out.

Mr. Dark did not take kindly her observation. His trademark smirk turned to a frown and then twisted into a glare as his shoulders drooped slightly.

“You are not the one who gets to bargain,” he hissed. “You don’t want to tell me how you cheated death, that’s fine because I will have power all the same. You will be my biggest attraction.”

“Frying me on stage every night?”

“Once I’m done with you, mere electricity will be but a tickle for you. Myka Bering, you shall be the Act of Lady Death.”

She pulled against the straps, her eyes dropping down to look at where they met the chair. 

“I don’t really care for the title.”

“Me…nei…ther.” Pete’s tried voice peeped up from behind her. She wondered if he was getting sleepy from the lack of air due to whatever methods the Strong Man was imposing.

The fact that she hadn’t heard anything from Helena in a while was concerning as well.

“I shall make you the very thing you ran from,” Mr. Dark commanded as he jumped back and up in the air. “I take it to heart the forms I make those who will become part of the carnival family.”

He ran up towards her again and settled between her legs, excitement breaking through with the quirk of his lips and spread of his dimples. 

“You will be my grim reaper, my Hel being.” The light from above danced in his eyes. “One touch from Mr. Dark’s Lady of Death and she’ll take years off of you. Who needs the carousel, when the magical calliope beats inside you?”

Like autumn then, she thought suddenly. That one last burst of vitality and growth, was that what was happening to her, these flaring feelings? And then only to die, the way she had been meant to. Mr. Dark did not know the ways she had done it but all the same it was true…she had cheated. How could there not be consequences?

His hand reached up and he lightly trailed his finger upon the curve of her cheek.

“You are the walking blackness, the numbness in the twilight,” he spoke softly but it was a whisper that echoed around them. “The burning coals of a fire untouched.” He cupped her cheek and rubbed his thumb against her skin. “Can you feel that?” He dug his thumb in deeper and she tried to move away. “Is that just instinct?” He pulled back. “I think it is. You don’t feel much of anything anymore do you?” His hand curled against his chest and then he laid his fingers against the opening of his shirt. “Not unless I say so.” The moment he rubbed his fingers through the opening Myka gasped and tried to lean over but the chair still contained her. The reaction was immediate.

Mr. Dark rubbed the skin where her tattoo lay.

The fire roared and burned brighter inside of her.

“Remember, how it felt…to know that Helena freely chose to stay away?”

Everything felt too hot and too fast. She tried to curl her body in as it all surged inside of her.

He leaned in and whispered only for her to hear. “Remember, how it felt to know that when given the opportunity, she chose anyone else but you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and cried out, “Ahhhh!” 

Blood inside of her felt like it was sizzling.

“Stop,” she gasped.

“She didn’t pick you.” His breath puffed against her ear.

The noise of the band around her head snapping was notably loud, so loud and unexpected that a few of the audience members actually twitched in their seats.

Mr. Dark pulled back, a look of mild shock passing across his face, before he pleasantly smiled. He no longer hovered by her face but he placed his hands over hers and lingered over the chair.

“How unfair it was that you above all, you who was always so careful, so mindful of your choices and you were the one that the disease chose.” His smile swayed back and forth. “At least you were picked then.” He nodded at her.

Without the restriction of the band anymore she was able to move more freely and the rage curled around her spine and arched her back forward, her neck straining out as her teeth practically snapped at the air just in front of the man’s face. The skin on her face felt like putty as it morphed, the feeling of unknown expressions twisting, an animalistic hum pulsing through.

But words had started to fail her.

An inferno was devouring her.

Mr. Dark started to laugh and he rubbed his hand against the marked skin again.

Scorching, searing sparks blazed.

“Life is filled with nasty truths and the truth is, that after you become the Queen of the Freaks, the General of Death, you will be the one to dispose of your friends,” he crowed. 

Bonfire after bonfire was lit. Myka’s body hurtled forward again and again.

“No,” she desperately whispered, her body hunched over.

And God, how it was a never-ending circle of rage that spiraled inside of her. 

By just the touch of his finger tips, the man was able to control and push her body, her body was not hers and she had already been through that hell once, that absolute lack of control when an inside force blew through everything else. The anger, the absolute indignation only caused the madness to erupt further.

“It’ll be cathartic.” Mr. Dark patted her hand in a very patronizing manner. 

Why did death have to be so ravenous? When was it satisfied with what it took?

Two of the spotlights above them shattered and burst, the broken glass just missing them.

“STOP!” a scratchy, but fearful voice called out, the word echoing around them all.

Myka and Mr. Dark immediately wrenched themselves away from each other at the same time.

The Dust-Witch limped onto the stage with shaking hands held up towards them. Her veil was in place but fear seemed to quaver around her, she was trembling all over, the golden beads swishing back and forth even has she stood in one place.

Myka looked at her and then back at Mr. Dark and as their eyes locked, for the first time she saw the look of the unknown in his eyes, a blink of insecurity, a squint of fear.

Neither, Myka or Mr. Dark had pulled away from each other because of the interruption. 

“Mr. D-a---rk, I be---beg you, stop.” The Witch crept forward like a cowering dog. “The forces you are playing with, they…it is dangerous. You will not like the outcome.”

Mr. Dark was like one of his statues. He stood still with a look of disgusted horror and confusion.

Myka was not far behind with the same sentiment.

The Witch slithered up and her head tilted and she must have sensed the change. “It’s too late,” she moaned.

“Be quiet, wench!” Mr. Dark snapped.

“Get it off.” Myka started to shudder. Her eyes locked on the skin on the top of her right hand, skin that used to be bare but now suddenly contained a tattooed face. Her eyes had barely had time to see the whole exchange, one second Mr. Dark’s hand lay over hers and then like a snake the ink slithered down his arm and jumped to her hand. A spark had jolted between them as it had happened and Mr. Dark had frantically pulled away.

Inked eyes blinked at her and her hand tickled. “GET IT OFF!”

“That is not possible.” Mr. Dark still looked at her in a state of shock.

“But it is,” the Witch wheezed. “No longer the Illustrated Man, but…the Illustrated Woman.”

Whip fast his hand snapped out and locked around the Witch’s throat, he squeezed his hand and lifted her up off of the ground.

“IT IS NOT POSSIBLE, I AM THE OWNER OF THE CARNIVAL, AND I AM MR. DARK!” Spit flew out of his mouth as he roared. “SHE WAS NOT MEANT FOR THAT!”

The Witch wriggled in his grasp. “It’s what the carnival wants, not your want, not any more. It has chosen.”

Mr. Dark pulled the Witch in closer. “It is my power not hers. She was meant to be Death.”

“The carnival would not have it,” the Witch continued to croak. “Death is but a stop, an end, it is nothing. She is not nothing.”

“THIS IS MY CARNIVAL!” he bellowed.

Myka was only in agreement about that; she leaned closer to make out the face of the tattoo she had acquired. It was a horrifying thing to examine but when she realized it was the face of the Strong Man something occurred to her.

All of her tugging against her bindings had caused the ones around her wrists to loosen and she was able to slip her left hand out as Mr. Dark continued to have his meltdown.

The band on her right wrist was not as loose but she still hurried to get it out. Mr. Dark had suddenly gone quiet and was about to look back at her and so without much thought she poked two of her left fingers into the Strong Man’s inked eyes and felt a whole lot less silly when about two seconds later there was a roar of screeching pain from behind her.

“My eyes!” The Strong Man bellowed.

Two almost identical sounds of something falling to the ground followed.

Myka poked again and the screaming continued. The Strong Man ran past them, his hands covering his face as he yelled in agony, his elbows catching the Dust-Witch’s head as he lurched past and she was knocked out of Mr. Dark’s grasp and fell to the ground hard.

Myka slipped her right hand free and pulled her arm back and executed a fine punch straight to Mr. Dark’s face before he even had a chance to fully register everything that was happening around him. Blood flew out of his mouth as his body twisted and he fell over.

“Ow! My head, now my head!” The Strong Man cried just before he fell off of the stage and into a patch of darkness. His cries immediately stopped. No one in the crowd moved to help him.

Myka leaned down to quickly undo the straps around her ankles and noticed that the tattoo was of a bruised looking Strong Man who was now sitting on the top of her knuckles. The straps came undone and Myka leapt out of the chair. Mr. Dark was writhing on the floor holding his jaw.

Turning behind her, she felt a flutter of relief as a little roughed up looking Pete was helping an equally weary Helena to her feet but at least they were breathing.

“Pete!” she called. “Help me get him into the chair!”

Pete looked up at her, he was half bent over but he nodded and quickly started to run over.

She reached down to roll Mr. Dark over. His bloody smile was less charming but he huffed a burst of laughter before rubbing the tattoo of her on his chest.

Myka crumbled over onto the ground beside him.

“You didn’t get the tattoo that counted,” Mr. Dark half-coughed as he tried to get back up. “You don’t have all the control yet.”

Wildfire combusted in her chest and her breathing became heavier. 

What was taking Pete so long? He always gets so distracted, she thought with abrupt anger.

“PETE!” 

The skin on her right forearm itched.

“I’m right here!” Pete’s voice called near her. “H.G., you check the Witch.”

Myka could see Pete’s feet just out of the corner of her eye. “Myka?”

“Just…get him locked into the chair first…” she huffed out, as she tried to control the conflicting irritation.

The skin on her arm started to burn and Myka reached up and struggled to pull her sleeve back. Two more tattooed faces looked up at her.

Pete.

Helena.

She started to laugh deliriously. 

“Myka,” Helena’s voice hovered over her but her mind was elsewhere, turning the pages back.

_How easy..._

_Just this once…_

_But then…once you start, you’d always come back. One more ride and one more ride. And, after awhile, you’d offer rides to friends, and more friends until finally… The thought hit them all in the same quiet moment._

_…finally you wind up owner of the carousel, keeper of the freaks…proprietor for some small part of eternity of the traveling dark carnival shows…_

_Maybe…_

_They’re already here._

She was already here. She was already chosen. She’d already accepted apparently.

“Myka?” Helena spoke again. The other woman leaned down, her hand hovering over her back.

“Come on,” Pete’s voice carried over as he struggled with Mr. Dark. “You like this chair so much, you sit in it.”

Helena reached down to touch her other arm and Myka pulled away.

“Don’t touch me!” She could still feel the flames flickering inside of her, she was trying to control it, she was trying not to think about what it meant to have Pete and Helena tattooed on her. It was too dangerous.

Helena recoiled back.

“Just…” Myka huffed out as she bent her head towards the ground. “I just…need a moment.”

“All right,” Helena replied softly, a sense of hurt not well covered but Myka did not have time to think about that.

A fight broke out just by them as Mr. Dark was putting up a fair struggle.

“Hey!” Pete yelled.

Myka looked up as Mr. Dark slipped out of Pete’s grasp and he punched her partner across the face. It was a flurry of motion as Helena leapt in to subdue the man but Mr. Dark while not apparently in his full capacity still had supernatural strength on his side and he slithered between the two of them and was able to lock Helena in a chokehold.

“Nobody come any closer.” Mr. Dark slowly began to back up with Helena in front of him.

“Give it up!” Pete yelled as he rubbed his jaw.

Helena reached out with a well-placed back kick to his groin but he was ready.

“I know all of your moves,” he seethed in Helena’s ear.

With a degree of effort Myka stood up and Mr. Dark’s hands trembled across Helena’s throat, they began to squeeze tighter. Helena struggled to pull his hands back.

“I only wanted to give you the best, and you all either threw it back in my face or took too much!” Mr. Dark focused on her. “You are not the owner of my carnival.”

“No,” she replied. “I don’t want to be.”

But it had chosen her nonetheless. It was a sicken feeling.

Without their guns, she was unsure of what leverage they could use. Helena’s face was becoming red too fast. 

She needed to focus. Not on the rage. Not on the heat. 

Not on the past.

Not on the future.

The present.

Focus. 

On clear thought. 

On a goal.

Myka raised her left palm up and looked at the lines of her hand. She began to recall every detail, every quirk and spot, the curve of his smile, the dark of his eyes, the line of his jaw and there upon her skin, ink welled up from some unknown source and the picture of Mr. Dark etched itself into her flesh.

For if the carnival was in her and in him, then the connection could be theoretically be made from both ends.

“What are you doing?” Mr. Dark asked, a nervous tick hitching the last word up in the air.

Memory was indeed important. She thought and recalled, she didn’t dare chance looking at the real thing and then the face was there, color seeping in slowly but she did not wait as she turned and locked eyes with the real man and then crushed her fist tight together.

Instantaneously, Mr. Dark let Helena go and he crumpled to the ground in pain.

Helena gasped for air and Myka reached forward to catch her. “Are you okay?”

Helena coughed and nodded slowly. “I will be. Thank you. What…what did you do?”

Had Helena and Pete not seen the tattoos yet, had they not seen the passing of illustrated sins?

Myka chose not to answer as she pushed past and leant down to finally stop the man and his reign.

But again, the man still refused to lie down, he shuffled up, surprisingly quickly and he spun around, his hand gripping the blue glowing sword and yanking it up from the ground. Myka pushed Helena back violently out of the way and tried to move away as well from the attacking man but desperation marked his steps and he flung himself forward, his hands latched onto her shoulders and the sword grew smaller but it made the cut all the same as he stabbed it up into the left side of her ribcage.

“Oh,” she gasped.

“MYKA!” Helena screeched.

“Do you feel that?” Mr. Dark’s foaming bloody smile bubbled at her. “No, you don’t do you.”

He pushed the dagger in further and she jerked. “Maybe there.” He pushed again and this time she felt the pain double. “What do you know? The lady does still have a heart.”

“Get off her, you bastard!” Pete yelled as he charged over and tried to pull the man off.

Helena followed but Myka’s vision started to blur and she wasn’t entirely sure what was happening.

She felt herself start to fall back and as she did she saw the tattoo of herself again as she pulled against Mr. Dark’s shirt, but it was something else that drew her attention behind the fabric.

What an odd thing to have, she thought, but then her back hit the floor. Mr. Dark was pulled off and away and then Helena was hanging over her.

“Myka!”

Helena looked frantic. “Stay with me.”

Myka’s head started to swim again, a current rushing through. She lifted her hand up and saw it was covered in her blood. She rubbed her fingers together.

“Huh, it’s so warm,” she whispered and laughed obliviously.

Her eyes rolled back.

A slap to her face caused her eyelids to flutter back open.

An angry Helena sat practically on top of her. “You stay with me, Myka, you stay with me, you hear me!”  


Helena was pushing against the side of her wound desperately.

“But…” she started and then found herself stopping at the furious look on the other woman’s face. “Okay…ok…”

A bubble of blood came out of her mouth and she felt the trail of it stream down her chin before everything went dark again.


	15. Chapter 15

>   
>  “I'll be damned if death wears my sadness as glad rags.”  
> 

Were they robes of silk or cotton that adorned her limbs?

Charcoal fabric swished and rustled against her skin. A void of black lay upon the pale white of her, a white that peeked through and then disappeared. Hands pulled through the layers and layers; she tried to find some end, hands fighting for space, reaching, grasping and then the fabric would fold back again. 

The material was heavy on her head, a weighted crown of thick cloth.

Thin, bony fingers pulled through and reached up and back, the hood fell down and there Myka found the air and she breathed it in deeply even as her chest rattled and wheezed oddly. 

Painfully.

She glanced done at her slender arms that poked through the swirling vortex of dark material. She waited. She waited for the skin to disappear, for the unseen white, the even duller pale to pull to the surface as the skeleton bones of the taker and giver appeared.

Would the sickle fit rightly in the lanky grip?

A new beginning.

But instead, the fabric started to pull back, it began to decrease in size, heavy black folds disappearing as the black became shinier and sleeker. Sleeves shrinking as the cuffs of an obsidian jacket rested comfortably at her wrists.

An outfit perfect for the ringleader of the dark.

Skin under the suit started to burn and tickle with tiny pinpricks of pain. Needle bites soothed over with a band-aid of ink.

Her chest rattled loudly.

Breath. Gasp. Breath.

Rat-a-tat-tat her ribcage sang.

Rat-a-tat-tat.

Rat-

A-

Tat-

 

Myka slowly opened her eyes and saw she was not wrapped in curtains of ruin, there was no creased crown latched around her head, merely her familiar pillow, the pillow that lay on her bed, her bed in the B &B.

Tat! The window in front of her snapped with sound and her tired eyes noted the tree branch that rattled against the glass, a gust of window coming and going and snapping the wood against the pane in a familiar rhythm. 

Rat-a-tat-tat.

The leaves on the tree they still held on tightly, the green of them a welcoming sight in the sunlight.

The accustomed feeling of confusion and weariness kept her still. Was it silly to imagine it was all a bad dream with the horrible flashes that filtered through?

Was she still dreaming? Had she not been moments ago lying on the carnival’s ground, bleeding out with her skin marked and claimed? Had that been real?

“You are not dreaming, Agent Bering.”

Myka turned her head around to face the voice and winced immediately, her shoulder flaring to life with a throbbing pain.

“Hmph,” she grunted as the foreign agony ran through her.

Not a dream, she thought as she recalled the Strong Man had almost tore her shoulder right off. 

“Does it hurt?” the voice spoke again. 

Myka looked at Mrs. Frederic, her gaze the usual hard to decipher set of features as she sat poised in a chair beside her bed.

Slowly, Myka nodded as she gingerly pulled her shirt away from her skin and observed the dark bruise that splashed itself across half of her upper body. It was like she was suddenly looking at it with a different set of eyes.

“Anything else?” Mrs. Frederic’s calm voice broke the silence again.

Gradually, the synapses in her brain began to make their connections, and she lifted the blankets of her bed up and with a conscious effort of being mindful of her injured shoulder she pulled her shirt up and caressed the skin of her left ribcage. There was no bandage, no train tracks of stitches and not even a bumpy ridge of a healing scar. The skin was unmarked.

Her heartbeat pumped against her warm hand.

“Ho…w?” she mumbled, her tongue rolling in her mouth like a cotton ball.

“Would you like some water?”

She nodded.

Mrs. Frederic reached for a glass of water on her beside table and leaned over. Myka fought for a few undignified seconds to wrap her lips around the straw as she drank slowly. The cool water rushed forward and helped alleviate the dry feeling that coated her mouth.

“Thank you,” she wheezed. A few drops of water dribbled down her mouth and she moved to ease her hand up to catch them but Mrs. Frederic was quicker in dabbing a tissue against her mouth softly.

If Myka had been still before she was somehow a step beyond it, she felt her eyes go wide and a small smirk quirked at the other woman’s lips.

“Do you not care for my bedside manner?”

“I…” Myka stuttered.

“Or, perhaps, that I have such a manner at all.” Mrs. Frederic’s lips were pursed together in a daring way.

“Um…yes…NO…I mean no-“

“There are plenty of other people waiting downstairs who would be more adept at the honor but I believe it would be best if we were to speak together first now that you are finally awake.” Mrs. Frederic set the water back down and was already moving on in the manner she was fluent in; Myka was trying to keep up.

“What…” Myka swallowed. “What happened?”

“I believe, Ms. Donovan, would label that…a loaded question.” Mrs. Frederic was an impassive force as she sat beside her but there was a tiny swelter of warmth in her eyes. Myka took comfort in it even as the other woman’s lips were back to being a firm line, closed and waiting, waiting for what, Myka had no idea what she was to say.

“How…how long has it been-“

“Since the carnival,” Mrs. Frederic interrupted; it was a kindness, as Myka still struggled to get her mouth working in tandem with her thoughts. “You have been asleep for two days. You arrived late Sunday. It is now Tuesday morning.”

“Pete…and…” she swallowed again. “H-“

“Agents Lattimer and Wells are here as well. They are as fine as they can be.”

Myka’s face contorted and Mrs. Frederic’s quirking half smirk was back again. “You have all been through quite an ordeal. You, indeed, above all but both of your fellow agents have been waiting to see how you would do.” Mrs. Frederic reached for the water again and this time held the straw out.

Myka forgot any prideful burst of dignity and leant forward to swallow some more water. 

“Lattimer and Wells are not known for their patience.”

Myka coughed on her third sip and Mrs. Frederic pulled the water back and set it down. Myka nodded her thanks. 

“They will be delighted to hear you are awake. Claudia as well.” Mrs. Frederic folded her hands in her lap. “All of us.”

“I don’t understand.”

Mrs. Frederic responded by raising one eyebrow.

When she didn’t say anything, Myka found her hands clenching the blankets together.

Mrs. Frederic took pity on her. “It is understandable that you may be confused about a lot of things.”

Her fingers wrapped around the bunched blankets tighter. There was always that fine line with Mrs. Frederic where layer upon layers of words weren’t being said or were being said and meant a hundred different things, insults, words of caution and compassion, deflections of anger and expressions of concern wrapped up in an enigma. 

“I think I can hear your heartbeat beating furiously from over here. You may calm yourself, Agent Bering, I am here as an act of goodwill.”

“Goodwill?”

“We will get to that in a moment. What in particular is it that at this very second you do not understand?”

And Myka felt it was best to go with the most obvious. “How I’m alive?”

“Curious then? Not disappointed?” The caretaker’s eyes narrowed over her glasses and the look that always felt like a test was focused on her and Myka swallowed dryly.

“Can I have some more water please?” And she knew she wasn’t helping herself with the act of feeling small but her head felt tired and she didn’t have time to obsess. She was going with gut reaction and gut reaction was to avoid that knowing look for the test she didn’t study for.

Mrs. Frederic did not refuse, she passed the water and Myka found the strength to reach for the glass herself. She sipped three more times and the caretaker did not move an inch. The glass then settled back on the table, the distraction out of sight.

But Mrs. Frederic did not speak in the pause that surrounded them.

“He…he stabbed me in the heart, how can I…” she said. Mrs. Frederic locked her eyes with hers. “I shouldn’t be alive.”

“That could be your mantra of late.”

And there it was, a big red ‘X’ marked across her page. Mrs. Frederic knew, the woman was uncanny in her ability and here she was trying to act like Mrs. Frederic was like her friendly neighbor stopping by with fresh flowers with concerns on how high the hedge between their lots was growing.

“This isn’t an attack on your character, Myka,” Mrs. Frederic spoke softly. “I just wish to speak with you and you wish to know how you are alive. A conversation of knowledge being gained and shared, do you not think it has come a time for such a thing?”

“All right,” she whispered back, her eyes drawn down to the blankets.

Mrs. Frederic reached into her blazer and pulled out a small shiny neutralizing bag. She then pulled a purple glove from her pocket and slid it on. With careful steps she opened the bag and began to pull out a small object, a black strap trailing after it. Myka recognized it as a badge pocket with a broken lanyard, like a hanging nametag she’d worn before for work conferences back in the day.

“I believe your Mr. Dark wore this around his neck, underneath all his clothes.”

“That’s the artifact? A name tag?”

Mrs. Frederic half smiled at her. “Not quite.” Another careful budge and the artifact fully came into her hand and out of the bag; a few sparks went off as she did so. “You pulled it off of him as you fell down. You may not remember but Mr. Lattimer says it was gripped in your hand. You must have snapped it off.”

“Something that tiny was the cause for all of that?” she half-scoffed.

“Indeed.”

“What is it exactly?”

Mrs. Frederic turned the badge around and she could partially see through the clear covering what lay in it. Myka shifted up in the bed to take a closer look and ignored the throb in her shoulder. It was a small worn down card, most of it seemed faded, a corner or two ripped and starting to disintegrate. She made out ‘Waukegan, Illinois’ first and then the word ‘Library’. Squinting her eyes she tried to focus on the bleary picture of a young man or boy but it was the name scrawled under the picture that caused her to pull back with a start.

“Ray Bradbury’s library card,” she breathed out, her eyes locked with Mrs. Frederic’s and then she found herself laughing in disbelief. “A library card, a library card caused all…” she trailed off.

“What is that saying, ‘great things come in small packages’?” the other woman replied as she slipped the card back into the bag and a few more sparks went off. “It is highly active, waiting to be used again, even now away from the carnival and its influence. It is as though it has been charged.”

“There’s no way that just that thing was the artifact, did they find anything else, there had to be…” she trailed off again as her mind whirled back to everything she recalled seeing at the carnival.

“The fact that you are sitting here breathing and talking should be proof enough.”

“But…but the carousel.”

“You are a fan of Bradbury’s work, yes?” The package was slipped back into her blazer.

Myka nodded, her mouth slightly open as she tried to comprehend it all.

“And what of the man himself?” 

Myka’s mouth still hanged open. “I’m sorry?”

“His work is the very definition of imagination. He was a young boy who was caught up by words from the moment he could absorb them. Much like the two boys in his novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, he would go to the library every day and read. He would write every day. His mind, his eagerness for the imagined worlds and stories running around in his head, every day with this small card in his pocket, or the palm of his hand. He was a very nostalgic man as well. He held onto this for a lifetime.”

“The birth of an artifact.”

“Yes, but whether it was in effect when he was alive or when he passed is questionable. Who knows what the last burst of emotion was to give it its power?”

“And what,” she fumbled for the words. “What does it do exactly?”

“It brings that imagination to life.”

“The carnival wasn’t actually a carnival?” Myka reached up and rubbed the space between her eyes. Puzzlement still confounded her.

“No, it was genuine. As Claudia’s research found Jim Williams’ family had a history of running a knock off carnival like the one found in the novel.”

“Jim Williams is real then?”

“Yes, unfortunately he was a victim just as much as anyone.”

“A victim who tried to kill me.” 

“Yes, but do you blame him?”

She turned and faced the other woman. “I still don’t even fully understand.”

“That is true but you do seem to be of the mindset that all there comes from artifacts is victims and yet there is accusation.”

“I have yet to see the opposite. Why else do we lock the artifacts up and away? Isn’t that the protocol?”

Mrs. Frederic was still in the chair as she wore a disapproving look. This was definitely a test.

“We’re going to make this carnival mission about me aren’t we and my issues. Is this an evaluation?” she challenged, a sense of righteousness speeding through the weariness.

“I cannot see how we cannot, not when the carnival chose you in the end.”

Myka froze.

“Lattimer saw the tattoos on you. He said it was hard to figure out what had happened exactly, what had made Mr. Dark so mad but then he saw them. Would you like to refute that claim?”

Myka pulled her sleeve back and noted the unblemished skin. No tattoos in sight. She thought and focused and no ink welled up.

Mrs. Frederic continued on in her charging fashion, “Jim Williams very much felt he owed it to his father to continue the carnival and try to make it a success. His father was a big fan of Bradbury and so in his memory Jim purchased a bundle of miscellaneous items from an estate resale,” Mrs. Frederic continued on, powering through, as Myka sat and stared at her arms. “Most likely the combination of already having a carnival in its image made the card’s powers that much stronger. Jim imagined a bigger, grander, true traveling supernatural carnival and slowly it began to happen. He carried that card with him in his father’s memory, in Bradbury’s memory and all that emotion it spiraled out of control. He wanted to be made in the imagine of Mr. Dark and he found one day it happened, and then he found his freaks and his Dust-Witch and then he could no longer remember anything but the plot, those imagined words. The power of the artifact grew and grew with the more people it trapped, with the more authentic the carnival became.”

“A library card,” Myka continued to mumble. 

“Yes, your case was very much a needle in a haystack, we are all very proud of the work you did. It was a hard case to crack. We could have been looking at an epidemic of sorts if it had of gotten any more out of hand.”

“You’re proud?” Myka turned and muttered, disbelief still echoing with her words.

“To answer the how of how you are alive, it is simple, you saved yourself.”

“What?” she found herself sniping, “With my imagination?”

The line of Mrs. Frederic’s lips somehow became firmer. “No, Agent Bering, you found the artifact, and Mr. Lattimer took the chance and immediately neutralized it.”

“And what?” she challenged. “That magically sealed the stab wound, the tear in my heart?” A hard turn of her chin and she looked back out towards the window. She felt funny. A weird combination of settings revolved inside of her. Her head felt clearer than it had in a long time, but confusion still made her thoughts ramble. Raging fire had settled but heat still burned, she could feel her pulse, she could feel her control slipping, she could feel the vice around her neck disappearing and so she sat on her bed, she sat with a sort of defiance, a sort of dejectedness that was like a sick child who didn’t want to listen to their parent. She wasn’t sure how Mrs. Frederic would feel about that comparison. 

The carnival had maxed out her sensations, full throttle in the end and now her body fought for a balance, a balance that hadn’t even been present before the mission.

She took a chance and looked at the waiting woman out of the corner of her eye.

“It was fortunate for you that in real life Jim Williams is a horrible magician. His sword trick that I was informed about was one of his imagined supernatural bursts from the artifact. It was not a trick. He just made it seem so. He believed it was. In reality, in the words of Agent Lattimer’s report, “the pompous ass actually carried around a small scepter that looked like its top was a bouncy ball from a ten cent vending machine on top of a horribly bejeweled chopstick. What a ridiculous jerk face-“ and you can imagine the other colorful language that followed that.”

She tilted her chin back towards the woman. “Pete actually did his report?”

“Yes, both he and Agent Wells were extremely efficient and forth coming with their reports for a change.”

“Huh.”

“I hope you will excuse me from repeating any passages from Ms. Wells’ report, I after all consider myself a lady of certain standing and you would be surprised what synonyms she made up for ‘jerk face’.”

She couldn’t help it, she laughed out loud, a joyful short laugh and while Mrs. Frederic’s face did not flinch with any flicker of emotion, her eyes glimmered in the light.

“That is a nice sound to hear.”

Myka closed her mouth, the laugh catching in her throat.

The blankets bunched in her hands again.

Rat-a-tat-tat the branch tapped against the window in between the silence that grew in the room.

“Was everyone saved then from the carnival’s grasp when the card was neutralized?” she asked softly.

“Those who were still alive were returned back to their natural forms. Jim Williams is very much now the Jim Williams we have on record.”

“Jacob Roads?”

Mrs. Frederic shook her head.

“If Mr. Lattimer had been a second too late with neutralizing the artifact you too would have been lost. Your heart only had a few beats left. Despite the growing power of the artifact, even when neutralized it does not have the power to reverse death.”

The fabric of the sheets twisted in her grip. “So many people were affected, lives…” she trailed off.

“Yes, I do believe this mission has not helped your increasing cynical outlook on the world of…wonder.”

Myka whipped her head around even as the pain throbbed through her shoulder.

“What?”

“Mr. Lattimer expressed some concern.”

Myka snorted. “This is an evaluation isn’t it?”

“I am here because despite any of your misgivings I do care about the state of my agents.”

“To evaluate the extent of my usefulness then?”

Mrs. Frederic’s lips pursed together. “It is true that based on a few innocent misguided whims the artifact of the card became an unexpected destructive force with consequences.” It sometimes was aggravating how the caretaker’s focus switched back and forth. It never seemed like act of forgetfulness but a tactic of keeping one of their toes. “We are dealing with the scene of the aftermath.”

“How?”

“I know you and your fellow agents may find this hard to believe but the Regents sometimes perform other tasks then…being sticks in the mud, or as Agent Lattimer says, glowering sticks in the mud.”

“You are paraphrasing aren’t you?”

“Too polite?” Mrs. Frederic’s smirk was back. “It is your job as agents to track down and find the source of the artifact, to contain it and save lives if need be. It is not your job to deal with the aftermath; we have other people to take care of that. How else do you think we keep this so quiet? Many people who come in contact with an artifact incident do find a way to explain it, to pull the wool back over their eyes, the brain can be a trick of its own but some…no doubt the very ones from this carnival incident, they will not forget, some will choose not too and we will be there to make sure there is no further fallout. To help them.”

“But how many Walter Sykes fall through the cracks?” Myka countered. “What becomes of Jim Williams, an ordinary man now who tasted such power, whose indirect actions caused someone to die? What wonder is there to be made when we’re just always trying to be one step ahead of the destruction?”

“It was by chance that the artifact was used for what it was, it could have easily fallen into someone else’s hands and used for far less damaging means.”

“Oh, so we could use it then and image a world of peace then and no consequences? No obliteration of the human race as an unforeseen outcome.”

“What about imaging cures?” Mrs. Frederic responded

The breath in Myka’s chest was stuck. “That was a low blow.”

“My apologies.” Mrs. Frederic slid an inch forward on her chair. “The card may very well only bring to life that of Ray Bradbury’s imagination.”

Myka pulled the sheets up higher.

“We contain artifacts exactly because of the circumstances of your recent mission. We research them, we make note of them and we protect them and if the time calls for it, those that are not bad, for they are not all destructive forces, we make an executive decision to use them for the good of the world. We made an executive decision to save your life, Agent Bering, the regents, your fellow agents…and yet you sit there and you have warped that opportunity into a misguided vendetta against-“

“Wonder?” she interrupted. “There’s always consequences.”

“You agreed to those chances.”

A timid smile trembled on her face. “I didn’t feel I had much of a chance left.”

“Did you wish to die?”

Myka was surprised by the lack of judgment on the other woman’s face.

“No,” she shook her head. “I was…just tired and…”

“What?”

Moisture started to form in her eyes and Myka reached up in surprise to rub it away. “They didn’t want me to give up.”

“And do you blame them for that?”

And as she sat there, Myka found the thoughts and ideas settle inside of her and she calmly faced the other woman. “No. I never…meant for it to seem…that I did.”

“Do you think you were cleared too early for active duty?”

“I thought this wasn’t an evaluation?”

“Think of this as more of an open dialogue.”

Myka picked at the fluff on one of the blankets.

“Did you really want to be back on active duty so soon? You were the one who pushed for it, no one else, everyone was-“

“Walking around on eggshells,” Myka interrupted. “It was frustrating.”

“And that push had nothing to do with word that H.G. Wells would be coming back to work at the warehouse?”

A clump of fluff came loose in her fingers. “What would that have to do with anything?”

“I believe that would be another example of a loaded question.”

Myka narrowed her eyes but Mrs. Frederic remained unchanged. 

“Sometimes when we have been through traumatic events it is not unknown for people to fall back on old habits.”

“Meaning?” Myka asked.

“Let us talk briefly about another artifact.”

“Any in particular?”

“How about the one that helped save your life?”

Myka frowned and laid her palms flat against the bed. “Oh, that one.”

“I think you may have been misinformed of its effects.”

Myka’s eyes narrowed a fraction more. “Yes, because everyone was so well informed to begin with on what it would do.”

“Erik the Red’s cup is not a magical cure for all disease but…it did have a hand in saving your life.”

“Well aware,” Myka huffed out. 

“The Vikings had a tradition of gifting tusks of the narwhal, considered almost a mythical creature of sorts, and melding that bone into a cup believed to have the power to negate any poison that may be slipped into the drink, and possibly help counter any poison ingested or found in the body. Long believed to be a healing artifact missing even before Warehouse 12.”

“I remember the description,” Myka mumbled as she gazed down at her hands. “I read the old archives after.”

“It was Agent Lattimer’s research that found its history, was it not?”

“Yes.” A small smile twitched on Myka’s face and she glanced up at the other woman. “I think it was the first time Pete had ever done any research.”

“Yes and so willingly. He and Agent Jinks traveled to Greenland in hopes of finding the artifact and they were successful.”

“Yes, they were.”

“And do you still consider it a success?”

Myka blinked strangely.

“We all took a chance, you more than anyone. We had no idea if the cup would acknowledge the remaining cancer in your body as a poison.”

“We still don’t…” Myka trailed off. “I still did the treatments, the second round of chemo.”

“And you drank from the cup every time you did.”

“Chemo though, it can appear to be a toxin as well…I still…”

“What is it, Agent Bering?”

“How do we know the cup even worked, sometimes I doubt-“

“Your existence?”

Myka half smirked at her and then rolled her eyes. “I’m not that far gone.”

“Good.” Mrs. Frederic folded her hands in her lap. “I understand your doubt, your worry, but how can it cloud your judgment when the evidence of how fast you recovered is apparent, you do not have the appearance of a woman who just a few months ago was still undergoing such treatment. Dr. Calder is very much of the belief your speedy recovery is due to the cups help.”

“I know…sometimes…”

Mrs. Frederic sat silently.

“Sometimes, my thoughts they feel too jumbled up.”

“And even with that small sense of doubt about your recovery, that it would falter, that it would regress back, that it was a trick, you then had concerns about the consequences of the use of the artifact.”

Myka started to pick at the blanket again. “It’s silly, I know.”

“Erik the Red’s cup still needs to be researched but it is very possible that you are here because of a combination of many things. We were all on the outlook for the possible consequences.”

“Pillaging and conquering urges.”

Mrs. Frederic smiled lightly. “I do believe those were at the top of the list. But since you never acquired a boat and a raging crew-“

“Is that a joke?”

“I don’t joke, Agent Bering. It was a serious concern.”

Myka’s smile grew and she had to turn away, her eyes roving back towards the tree outside of her window.

“Do you think your symptoms, your confusion and your unbalance were a consequence of using the artifact?”

Turning her head away from the window, Myka found her eyes wandering around every corner of her room. “I didn’t feel…right.”

“And if I were to tell you, that perhaps that was normal, that it was not due to consequences of an artifact, but the consequences of going through cancer, what would you say?”

Trailing her eyes up from the far corner to her ceiling and then back to the other woman, Myka’s lips trembled. “I would say you were probably a wise woman.”

“There is no guideline for how each person is supposed to deal with it, it is not guaranteed that your experience will make you more appreciative of things, that you will be a new person, the Hallmark movie as Ms. Donovan would say, it doesn’t happen for everyone…you were very strong during your treatment but no one discusses the treatment that is needed later.” 

“This is starting to feel less like an evaluation and more like a pep talk,” Myka countered.

“Maybe you are in need of one.” Mrs. Frederic eyes narrowed over her glasses again and Myka swallowed. “I have lived a long time to see the ways in which such a thing can change a person’s life. It is all right to be afraid even after you have come through, it is perfectly normal to be angry, to feel…not right.”

“And if it was that sometimes I didn’t even feel at all?”

“I suppose this may be Abigail’s area of expertise but the fallout you speak of there are other forms of Post-Traumatic Stress.”

“I know,” she replied and she knew how small her voice sounded between them. 

“It is possible that Erik the Red’s cup has some physical reactions we are unaware of, the truth is it could have magnified your natural feelings and lack of responses.”

“And there’s nothing we can do about that?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. How does your shoulder feel now?”

“It hurts.”

“More than before?”

“Yes.” Myka looked down at the bruise peeking through her shirt. “Actually, how come it didn’t fade after neutralizing the card?”

“Most likely because it was caused not by a supernatural act brought on by the artifact. The Strong Man in reality was still quite big even without the carnival’s magic.”

Myka pursed her lips together. “Mr. Dark…Jim…whoever,” she scoffed and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. “He said he couldn’t feel anything inside of me when we first got there. That I was the only one.”

“He was wrong though, in the end.”

Myka nodded.

“Not many people dealing with what you were would make the effort to necessarily go to a carnival so soon. And perhaps, the artifact you used has made an everlasting change inside of you but whether that is to control you, that is very much up to you.”

“So the pep talk then, be less cynical and more open.”

“Old habits, I told you.” 

“I guess you are going to order me to have sessions with Abigail as well.”

“That is entirely up to you. We are here to help you with whatever process you would like.”

“That goodwill?”

“Something like that.”

“I’m still a warehouse agent then?”

“What would make you think otherwise? However you want to proceed is up to you, but you have options, you are still one of the best agents I have ever seen. You are also not indebted to us to continue working if you don’t wish too. If you would also like further time off that is always-“

“The carnival chose me,” she hurriedly interrupted, the words bursting out of her mouth. “You said it yourself.”

Mrs. Frederic’s reaction was to only tilt her head up a bit.

“It picked me, it wanted me to be…the Dark.”

“And that concerns you?”

“How could it not? How does it not you?” She threw her hands up in the air. “That place…it did things to me…it made me so angry and-“

“Anger is far better than indifference wouldn’t you say?”

“What?” Myka stuttered in confusion.

“You still had it inside of you, Myka, those feelings, and yes, the carnival may have taken it to the extreme but there you were, just before, thinking you had nothing left inside and the carnival proved you wrong.”

“You think it was a good thing?” she exclaimed in shock.

“I am merely pointing out the good within the bad. The carnival it ran right through you and maybe in its wake it has rearranged the pieces. You are so very angry but you refused to accept it.”

“Old habits,” Myka murmured.

“Justified anger at what happened to you. Anger at certain people under this very roof.”

“Is that justified as well?”

“I’m sure that is something you will have to figure out if you choose too.”

“That sounds like a cop out?”

“Not my area of expertise.”

Myka squinted her eyes. “Is that another joke?”

In response the other woman stood up slowly. Mrs. Frederic pulled the chair back and straightened her blazer out.

“I didn’t mean any offense,” Myka blurted out.

The warmth of Mrs. Frederic’s eyes finally traveled to the lines of her lips and she smiled kindly, a medium sort of smile that was very rare for the other woman. “It is quite all right, Agent Bering. Dr. Calder will be in soon to check on you, she has been attending to you since you arrived.”

“Oh…”

“Artifact comas are like taking blood for her, more common than you’d think, but she will wish to know you are well. Everyone will.”

“And after…”

“You can do whatever you wish.”

“And if I wanted to leave?”

“You may and you can always come back.”

Myka snorted. 

“Something funny?”

“Yah, the idea of the Warehouse being a revolving door. Doesn’t seem like your style.”

“Many agents have come and gone, but the truth is, if an agent wishes they are always welcome back here.”

“Home is where the heart is then?”

“No, Agent Bering, home is the warehouse where there are security bombs that may go off at any chance of attack, because endless wonder needs to be protected.”

“I don’t know if that will fit on a stitched pillow.”

“If it did then it would need to be destroyed, we can’t have evidence of the warehouse ending up in an yard sale.”

“Okay, that, that was a joke this time, right?”

Mrs. Frederic didn’t blink. “You remember the story in Something Wicked This Way Comes well?”

They were jumping over again and Myka blinked wearily for a second. “Yes.”

“Good versus Evil and all that.”

“Yes,” she repeated.

“But it wasn’t that black and white was it?”

“No.” Her hands reached out to flatten the sheets down.

“It never usually is. The Freaks that Mr. Dark controlled, the idea of who Mr. Dark once was, the choices the two boys made. All were tempted by evil and yet choice remained. You always will have that choice.”

Mrs. Frederic turned towards the door. “You will have to trust me on that, I did have a run in with Mr. Bradbury myself in the eighties.”

Myka looked up quickly. “Okay, I can’t even tell anymore when you are jok-“

Her words faltered when she realized she was alone; Mrs. Frederic had disappeared in her usual fashion.

Ever since Mrs. Frederic had started to take Claudia under her wing and start the process of passing on the role and the knowledge that came with it, Myka had noticed a slight change in the still current caretaker.

She wouldn’t have called it a sense of humor, but it was definitely a sense of more and that had certainly been the longest conversation she had ever had with the woman before and she wasn’t entirely sure what all had been said and not said. 

Sliding under the covers she stared up at her ceiling and tried to categorize everything that had just happened.

Her eyelids started to feel heavy as she lay there.

She had urges. Urges to go downstairs and see who was really still there.

But sleep, it won out and for the first time in a long time, Myka welcomed the rest.


	16. Chapter 16

>   
>  “Too late, I found out you can’t wait to become perfect, you’ve got to go out, fall down, and get up with everyone else.”  
> 

Red dripped from the knife, big fat sloppy drops. A blooming crimson that spread itself out widely and thickly.

“Stop.”

Helena blinked. “Pardon?”

Pete dropped his knife heavily coated in strawberry jam and raised the jam coated scone to his mouth.

“I can tell you are being all reflective and…writery no doubt.” His teeth chewed annoyingly on the scone and jam.

“What?” Her eyes still focused on his mouth as he masticated his food, the pulp of it peeking through as he continued to talk with his mouth full.

“You got a certain look, this sort of pinched-“

“How are you eating right now?” she snapped, her shaking fingers wrapped around her mug of tea. The plate in front of her remained empty as she sat at the table across from Pete.

He swallowed his food. “Probably because I haven’t eaten in days.” He reached across the table and picked up another scone from the bakery box between them and then tossed it on her plate. “You should eat too.”

Helena felt the frown on her face deepen. “I am not hungry.”

Pete watched her over his food as he took a dramatic bite. “It’s not every day Mrs. F brings us scones, I mean they’re even freshly baked.”

“They are not just scones.”

Pete raised the half eaten scone up above his head and glanced under it and then over it. “Seems pretty sconey to me.” He chopped on it, almost all of the treat disappearing and he swallowed loudly. “Yes, that is pure scone.”

“Scones of distraction,” Helena muttered and sipped her tea. It was half gone but already cold and her frown somehow deepened further.

It was oddly a courtesy as Pete placed the one last bite of his food down on his plate. “Look, you wanna know why I can eat now, it’s because Myka is awake.”

“But we are not allowed to see her.”

“Ah, I get it now, someone’s all pouty and anti-flour because they don’t get to be the first one up there.”

Helena narrowed her eyes at the man.

“You may be easily placated with bakery goods, but I am not.”

“No kidding, think about how easy it be to get me to stop bringing about an ice age.”

Her fingers curled tighter around the mug.

“I’m sorry,” Pete mumbled, he sighed and his voice took on a more somber tone. “I’ve been just as worried as you since…since everything…it hasn’t been easy…but we are home and Mrs. F is here and she brought food, it’s got to be okay.”

She gazed at the man as he nodded at her and then reached for another treat for himself. His hands were steady and there was half a smile on his face but she could still make out the dark rings under his eyes. Neither of them had slept much since returning, since waiting to see if Myka would recover fully and when, and now that Mrs. Frederic had arrived suddenly with word that Myka would be waking up and she would be speaking with her first, Pete had suddenly found his appetite and she supposed she couldn’t fault him for it, even if they weren’t on the same page.

“How do you think she knew Myka would be waking up today?” Pete asked her. 

“I don’t know, but I hope she is correct in regards to that matter.”

“She’s been up there a good ten minutes already, so has to be. But I just don’t know how she-“

Helena lifted the bakery box up and read it. “How do you think she acquired these scones from a bakery in France?”

“Wha-“ Pete dropped his food and grabbed for the box. “Well I can’t read this, it’s all in French, but I will take your word for it.”

Helena’s eyes darted towards the open doorway and up towards where the stairs were. 

“You need to unclench. We won. We saved the day.”

Her eyes travelled away from the door and down to her hands. Unwrapping her fingers from her tight grip on the mug, she laid her hands flat down on the table and tried to still their shakiness. Quietly she stared at the pure white of them, the cleanliness of her nails and-

“Stop.” 

Slowly she looked up and matched Pete’s suddenly serious gaze.

“Stop thinking about it.”

There was a storm that brewed in her eyes; she could feel the turmoil spilling out with each blink, the moisture that threatened to fall. “And how am I to do that? I will always remember…remember…”

“Well go on, say it,” Pete challenged.

She clamped her jaw shut.

“Say it.” It was a command now.

She shook her head lightly.

“Fine, you won’t, I will. Myka’s blood. You won’t forget how Myka’s blood was all over your hands.”

She blinked and the storm clouds drew back, instead she felt a heavy weight between her eyes, a pounding. She withdrew her hands from the table and laid them on her lap away from his eyes…away from hers.

“It’s not like you stabbed her.”

Her fingers wrapped themselves around each other. One finger rubbed the ring on her left hand back and forth.

“It doesn’t…doesn’t matter,” she breathed out, her chest pushing out harshly.

And she couldn’t get it out of her mind, those seconds, those desperate seconds were Myka’s lifeline, her blood had been spilling out of her and all over her as she tried to stop the bleeding. It had been so slippery, as the blood had rushed out and poured over her skin, slick and oily as it had sneaked under her nails, dyed her pores.

She hadn’t even seen the artifact grasped in Myka’s hand, she had been so focused on the wound, on the surprised look in Myka’s eyes as the life began to fade from them.

She’d been too busy leaning over Myka as she tried to get her to stay awake, to stay breathing.

She’d been too busy blinking back the blood Myka had coughed up on her before…

It wasn’t just the blood.

She’d never forget that look just before Myka’s eyelids had closed. The last look Myka had given her. Fear. Regret.

Pete was watching her, his new scone untouched on his plate. With a not so subtle twitch she reached up and grabbed the chain of the locket she was wearing.

She’d never be able to fault the sometimes man-child before her she realized. Never again. He’d been the one to think quickly enough, to grab the artifact in Myka’s hand and neutralize it on the spot. She hadn’t even thought to have a neutralizing bag on her at the time.

“It does matter and I think it be best if you worked on trying to get it out of your head.”

Her nails dug at the skin by her collarbone. 

“You’ll freak Myka out and make her feel even more worse if you don’t pull it together.”

“Make her feel worse?” she asked in disbelief.

“You don’t think when Myka gets all sorted it’s not going to occur to her that she almost died in your arms. She’s goin’ feel so bad.”

“What? Myka had no control over…why would she feel-“

“Oh, my, god, how are you being this thick right now?” Pete shook his head at her. “Is this what happens when you don’t sleep more than three hours in over two days and all you ingest are buckets and buckets of tea?” Pete sighed and took a sip of his orange juice. “Actually, how have you not been peeing like every fifteen minutes?”

“I am not being thick,” she muttered back, slightly flabbergasted.

“All right, so maybe as I said before, you and Mykes, you guys aren’t really on the best of terms, but even a pissed off Myka would never do that to you, I mean we all know, dying in front of H.G., not a good thing… but Myka…I mean come on, you know what I mean don’t you?” He stared at his orange juice with a weird sort of fascination. “Myka…sometimes…” he trailed off and he gave a frustrated sigh, his eyes looking anywhere else around the room except at her.

“You’re not the only one who has issues you know? I mean granted yours are pretty up there but…sometimes…you and Myka are a lot alike and she…she’s going to be dealing with what happened at that carnival, what it did to her, how it made her act with us and knowing Myka…it’s not going to be easy, so I need you, no, she needs you not to be weird about it all, okay?”

He finally settled his gaze back on her. “So no walking around going, ‘Out, damn'd spot! Out, I say!’ and staring all dramatically at your hands whenever Myka is around.”

Helena’s lips quirked up lightly. “I thought you didn’t know Macbeth?”

Pete blinked at her blankly. “That’s from Macbeth too?”

“Yes.”

“Huh, I thought it was just like a saying, maybe I am just as educated as you.” He winked and started to load more jam on his awaiting scone.

“But you…nevermind.”

He pushed the box of baked goods back towards her side of the table. “Seriously, I know your first mission back was the mother load of a doozy but if you don’t start acting normal again it’s not going to be good for anyone. Some missions are close and some are not. We can never tell, but we go out there and we come back as best we can.”

She reached for her cold tea and she swallowed loudly. The lump in her throat only grew.

“How about I put this into perspective then.” He leant forward and rested his elbows on the table and held his hands just under his chin.

The frown was back at his horrible manners but she tried to smooth it out because…Never Again.

“Myka and I would have probably gone on that mission even if you weren’t here. Myka could have died even though you were nowhere in the area. No H.G. Wells bad mojo to inflict as you think.”

“Is this supposed to be the good part of the perspective?”

He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe if you hadn’t of been there, stuff would have gone to hell even faster?”

A half chortle tumbled out of her mouth. “Ha.”

“I’m serious.” 

She looked at his face, met the sober eyes and found the other half of the chortle cut short.

“Myka was dealing with stuff before we went, she and I, well as you know, she wasn’t always communicative with me and maybe if we didn’t have you there, have a sort of balance in-between…”

“But you were the go-between,” she blurted out.

“I dunno about that, I mean…I’m not the one who goes both ways.” He wiggled both his eyebrows at her.

“You are a…” she cut her words off as she remembered her new mantra.

“A what?” He cupped his hand over his ear. “Come on now.”

She didn’t respond, she kept her mouth clamped shut.

“Aw, you’re no fun.” He started to eat his food and for a moment there was silence between them.

Helena glanced up at the ceiling and towards the corner.

“Did you suddenly acquire the ability to see and hear through walls?”

She looked down and half-glared at Pete, it was the best she could do.

“You’re gunna pull something. Eat something instead.”

“I don’t want to eat anything right now.”

“I swear if you pass out on Myka the moment she’s up and about.”

“You swear what?”

He crunched his teeth down loudly on the quickly disappearing scone. “I swear…you’ll look like a fool.”

No bigger fool than already, she thought.

“You’re getting that pinched look again.”

“Would you just shut up and eat your breakfast,” she snapped.

His jam smeared lips pulled back wide and he smiled at her. “Ha, I was wondering how long it would take for you to get back to snapping at me, you were being all weird about it.”

She pursed her lips together.

“I know it may seem like I’m just teasing but…” He started to pick at the last bit of his food. “Myka has almost died more than once and you were only here for one of them, she could have died before and you wouldn’t have been here. I mean…seriously, what was the plan H.G.? Move around, living identity after different identity for what two more years, five years, ten years, just pretending we didn’t exist, I mean in that time any of us could have died or moved on. When would your breaking point have been, twenty years? You come back and what was the plan then?” He chucked the last piece of his food back down on his plate. “You always come and go, but the truth is you’d have come back-“

“I did come back, you speak as though I didn’t, you speak as though I’m still out there…” She couldn’t face his expression and she glanced down at her mug again.

His voice was surprisingly gentle when he spoke next, “I’m just trying to understand the plan from the get go. You’re a smart woman, H.G., you had to know that at some point you’d have broken down from the lies, broken down from not…not seeing her.” He tried to catch her gaze. “For a woman who was so adept at mapping out the future, I just can’t help but wonder about the fact that you didn’t think-“

“It wasn’t a plan,” she blurted out. “It wasn’t a safety net. Not exactly.” Her hand curled around the chain again. “I’m surprised you can’t see it.”

He looked at her in confusion.

“Those tendencies I’m so good at. I mean you are right, I would have eventually imploded at some point if I hadn’t…come back.”

She tapped a fingernail against the mug. “It is a justified concern, I may say, of my interaction with the Warehouse. My track record is not great.”

Pete remained quiet.

“I was obsessed once.” Her other hand tightened even more around the chain. “I mean to say…if given the chance, if I had the opportunity I would still wish for Christina’s return.”

“That is understandable.” He nodded calmly at her.

“And I still, evidently have issues with anger.”

Pete’s face surprisingly remained neutral.

“But over time…that urge…that rage it began to settle, the pain it never disappeared but it was almost as though things began to shift in their right place. When I helped you and Myka with the trumpet case, I felt this eagerness that had not been there in a long time. I realized quite too late what I had ruined. It was a surprising thing.”

“You know,” Pete began when she made no effort to continue. “I have a top ten list of shitty things the Regents have done.”

“Oh.”

“I mean I know they all aren’t jerks, mostly the exception being my mom.”

“That would be the clear and smart choice.”

“Yah, well the top spots mostly have to do with what they did or didn’t do with you.”

She looked up at him in surprise.

“They should have been working with you the second you came back to the warehouse, we should have had an Abigail back then, I mean anyone who even glanced at your file, like jeez, you never…you never got to rest or take care of yourself. I mean they’re lucky we have a Myka, if we hadn’t had a Myka… Myka’s the only one who took her time-“

“Yes, we are very lucky.”

“It’s okay, you know, to think that after everything you needed to go away, to rest…even if it wasn’t exactly the best thing to still be lying.”

“I have never faced any enemy more disastrous than myself. The ways in which I can twist myself up, work myself up.”

“Brains are funny.”

She nodded at him. “Indeed. I do not mean to say the temptation is not there, if I were to come across an artifact that I thought perhaps might bring Christina back…but I have discussed it with Abigail and there is a change now.”

“What?”

She smiled lightly. “I would actually weigh the consequences. Consequences were not much to me, not…not until Myka…” she exhaled as she felt the small pressure on her chest again. “I worked myself up, I told myself I was an addict, that I could not stand to be anywhere near the warehouse, that I was a danger to everyone there but lucky for me it was not twenty years that it took me to realize, I could be a danger to anyone anywhere, we all can be in different ways. I could come across another artifact out in the world, I could not tell you all, I could use it if I so desired. It doesn’t matter if there are shelves of artifacts in front of me, I would find a way.”

“You are resourceful.”

“Exactly. And so leaving was not some grand heroic gesture good for the world, it was me running away. It was me leaving the blame behind me.”

She pushed her mug away. “How was I to live any life when I truly have no way of coping?” A small sigh escaped her.

“You going to leave again now?” Pete asked quietly. 

She leveled her gaze at him.

“I wish for you to be well, H.G., I truly do, but if you can’t handle this again, if you can’t handle that Myka is mortal, you need to go now and you need to not come back. Because…because she can’t keep doing this, having you coming and going.” There was a harsh truth to his words but his face remained open and kind. “We’re all afraid sometimes.”

“We are all weak,” she murmured.

“And we can all be strong as well. No one says we’re supposed to just always be just one.”

She watched him across the table and his gaze did not falter. 

“I want to…I want to thank you for saving Myka’s life, both times. You are a good man, Pete Lattimer.”

“You’re only saying that because you are emotionally vulnerable right now and haven’t had any sleep.”

“That may be true, but know if that wasn’t the case right now, I would have at least thought of the sentiment all the same in my head.”

He half smiled at her. “Thank you.” He started to slowly push the jar of jam towards her. “So, staying or going?”

The smile was still on his face, but his eyes darkened a little and spoke of the ultimatum. She picked up her knife and reached for the jam and started to spread it on the somehow still warm out of the oven scone.

“How are they still warm?” she asked in surprise.

“Do you think they’re magic?”

“Do you feel okay after eating them?”

“Oh, come on, Mrs. F wouldn’t mess with us like that. Although…” He reached for another one and sniffed it and squinted at it closely. “Knowing you were here and how she said we had to wait to see Myka…”

“What?”

“There could be crushed up Valium in here or horse tranquilizers.”

She raised one eyebrow. “Happy pills and …well…horse tranquilizers,” he supplied.

“Ah,” she remarked and then shrugged.

“You’ve got to put more jam on it than that,” Pete exclaimed.

“Unlike some people I would like to taste the scone itself.”

“Pfft.” Pete rolled his eyes and grabbed his glass of juice.

Helena took a small bite and tried to focus on the now and how and felt the lump in her throat decrease a little.

“Myka doesn’t need you to save her life, H.G.,” Pete said quietly. “She just needs you to be in it.”

She stopped mid-chew at his earnest and felt it was best to go with, “Okay.”

He waited a beat and then nodded in confirmation at whatever he saw in her face.

The sound of the front door of the B & B opening startled them. They both turned towards the doorway and waited as they heard the door shut and footsteps approach. Claudia sauntered in and stopped in her tracks as she stared at them.

“I feel like I just walked in on something.”

“Claudia, dear, we’re just eating breakfast.”

“Oh, H.G. is finally eating and computing like a human being,” Claudia said as she approached and sat down in one of the other chairs. “Then I just walked in on something good didn’t I?” The young woman stuck her tongue out at her and Helena shook her head trying to hide a smile behind her food.

“Claud, don’t make her smile, she’s trying to be all serious and reflective,” Pete added.

“Well, stop H.G., when Sleeping Beauty wakes up she doesn’t want to see more frown lines around those beautiful eyes of yours.”

“Excuse me, I will have you know-“

“Mrs. Fredric let you in on how she knew Myka would wake up today?” Pete interrupted her.

“Nope, she’s still pretty secretive, she said eventually I’d get the hang of sensing these things. Apparently, the coma was actually a good thing, it happens sometimes after a particularly grueling experience with an artifact and it helps the body cope and heal from what happened. And I mean from what you guys said happened, sounds like Myka went through the ringer both physically and emotionally.”

“That’s putting the carnival nicely,” Pete snorted.

“How are you guys doing though?” Claudia asked. “I mean that carnival messed with you as well.”

“Other than having no desire to ever go to a carnival again, I think I’m doing okay,” Pete replied.

“Going to have to learn how to make your own candy apples aren’t you?”

“Yep,” Pete added with a sad sigh.

“And, you, H.G.?”

“I would say I am all carnivaled out as well. I have to say though, once the artifact was neutralized and seeing how small and…almost pathetic everything was, kind of took the edge off a bit.”

“One of those things being the Mr. Dark’s real life lack of hair?” Claudia asked with a smile.

“No comment.”

“Like the horses the carnival had were actually a dog and a raccoon. A RACCOON!” Pete held his hands up in disbelief. “I mean how even?”

Claudia ignored his outburst and reached over and tapped Helena lightly on the head. “But what about up here?”

Helena locked eyes with Pete briefly before looking back at her. “I am working on it.”

“And you’ll let us know if you need anything?”

She suddenly found a second serious glance narrowed at her and Helena nodded back. “Yes, I promise.”

“Good.” 

Helena pushed the box across the table towards Claudia.

“Think Mrs. F will tell you how she got these freshly baked goods from France here?” Pete inquired.

“Yes, Pete, that will be at the top of my list of things to ask when taking over as Caretaker.”

Pete narrowed his eyes. “I can’t tell if you are being serious or not and this is important.”

“Oh!” Claudia squealed and grabbed a pastry out of the box. “A chocolate croissant!”

“What!” Pete exclaimed and pulled the box back to him and began to search in it. “I didn’t see any of those in there before.”

“Maybe because you couldn’t see anything over your jam mountain,” Helena added.

“Whatever,” he mumbled. “I’m surprised Mrs. F even brought us anything in the first place.”

“She does seem…” Helena paused as she searched for the right word. “A little different than usual.” She tried not to make it sound like a question.

Claudia snorted. “A little. She’s a little more…”

“Fun,” Pete supplied as he tried to snatch the croissant off of Claudia’s plate but she slapped his hand away.

“Yes, but not like regular people fun she’s still…”

“Terrifying,” Pete finished again.

“Stop finishing my sentences,” Claudia retorted.

“Fine, I’d rather finish your croissant anyway.”

“It’s sandwiches, the joke is finish each others sandwiches.”

“I don’t care for your specifics,” he moaned. “Food is food.”

In response, Claudia took a large bit out of her chocolate croissant and groaned with pleasure.

“Claudia,” Helena spoke. “Not at the table. That’s practically indecent.”

The young woman blushed suddenly and started to cough. Pete tapped her on the back and passed her some water. She coughed twice more and then drank the water.

“I wasn’t-“ she babbled.

“See, that’s what happens when you don’t share your food with me,” Pete said.

Claudia glared at him. “You aren’t getting any.”

Pete sighed. “Okay, but when you are Caretaker you better get me some chocolate croissants from France.”

“That’s going to be for a few years, so yah, you will be waiting for that for a while.”

“Has Mrs. Frederic given you a timeline?” Helena asked curiously. Her eyes still darted towards the stairs but she tried not to concentrate too much on it.

“Just a few years basically, but she is already acting like retirement is on the horizon.”

“That’s what it is!” Pete snapped his fingers. “She’s got that sort of spunk you know, like when you know you’re almost out and like who cares.”

“She still cares, Pete,” Claudia countered.

“No, I know, but she’s less you know…” he paused as he tried to make an extremely stern face.

“Dude, are you constipated? Did all those scones block you up already?”

“Claudia, dear, again, not at the table, please.”

“Right, I forgot, Ms. Manners over her.” Claudia rolled her eyes and Helena pretended not to notice.

“Pip, pip and all that. We are having a very posh breakfast,” Pete spoke in a very high English accent. “So very British.”

“Why must you always do that?” Helena groaned. “You act like I am the Queen half the time.”

“Don’t mind him, he’d call Oliver Twist, Posh Spice,” Claudia interjected. “Think of it as a good thing, he only still makes jokes about your accent and your birth country.” 

“See, it’s a positive thing.” Pete stuck his chin out at her.

“You made references to giant forks and Lady Cuckoo just a few days ago! And the ice age just now!” 

“Did I? Must have been the stress. The jokes are like the Greatest Hits album and you don’t want me to play them and it’s hard but I am working on it.” He was attempting Puppy Dog eyes and Helena wanted it to stop immediately.

“Fine, whatever, work on it harder. And I am English, I am having an English breakfast.”

“The pastries are from France, stop trying to spread the empire’s power again.”

This time it was her who rolled her eyes.

For a few moments the three of them sat in peace as they finished their breakfast but then Helena found something nagging her.

“What the hell is a Posh Spice?” she asked.

Claudia’s eyes lit up. “O-m-g! I dunno if you would be Posh Spice, maybe…Scary…” She turned to Pete. “Scary Spice?”

Pete’s brow creased in deep thought. “Ginger Spice?” 

“Hmm.“ 

“Why are you all suddenly obsessed with spices?”

“Shhh, H.G, we are thinking.” Claudia tapped her chin.

“Maybe a new Spice Girl?” Pete asked. “The sixth unknown Spice Girl.”

“Like All-Spice Spice Girl,” Claudia squealed as she jumped a little in her chair.

“Yah! Totally, she’s totally All-Spice.” 

“What is going on?” Helena asked, honestly perplexed.

Pete and Claudia continued to ignore her and high fived each other across the table.

“Don’t worry, it’ll make sense one day, H.G.,” Claudia spoke as she tapped her on the shoulder. “I’m totally going to get Myka to sing Wannabe at you.”

“Wanna what?”

Pete abruptly started to sing and Helena began to think everyone else had lost his or her minds. “If you want my future forget my past, If you wanna get with me better make it fast, Now don't go wasting my precious time, Get your act together we could be just fine.”

Claudia jumped in and started moving her hands in the air. “I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want-“

“I’m I interrupting?” a steady voice cut through the air.

Claudia and Pete stopped singing at once and stared blankly behind her. Helena didn’t have to turn around to know Mrs. Frederic had made her appearance.

“Ah, no, Mrs. F,” Pete replied. “Just enjoying this sweet breakfast you brought us.”

There was no reply but Helena imagined an eyebrow had been raised. Mrs. Frederic slowly walked around the table and stood looking over all three of them.

“Is Myka-“

“Yes, Agent Wells,” Mrs. Frederic interrupted. “Agent Bering had indeed woken up from her ordeal.”

“And is she all right?”

The Caretaker narrowed her eyes at her and Helena tried to remain impassive.

“Time will tell but she does admit to feeling different.”

“Like different bad or different good?” Pete cut in. “I mean I know there was the carnival and that but what about the cup and-“

“Potentially, different good,” Mrs. Frederic remarked slyly. “And your concerns as have hers have been noted and we will be looking into it but I do not think you have to worry.”

Helena watched as Pete’s worried expression slowly dispersed on his face. He’d informed her already of what artifact they had used to help Myka heal from her cancer. She could understand his concern but was thankful nonetheless.

In the silence that followed, Helena pushed her chair back and started to get up.

“Where are you going?” Mrs. Frederic asked.

“To see Myka.”

“If I could ask you to please sit back down, Ms. Wells.”

Helena froze half up from her chair. “I don’t think-“

“Your actions have been noted but Agent Bering is still resting.”

“She’s asleep again?” Claudia asked.

“Yes, but a more natural sleep, she will be up again soon. Dr. Calder will be stopping by again to check on her.”

Helena still felt Mrs. Frederic’s firm gaze and it felt like giving in and against her nature but for the good of the table she sat back down.

“Abigail has already agreed to deal with the Warehouse for the day and Arthur and Agent Jinks will be arriving back from their mission tomorrow so I hope I can rely on you three to give Myka exactly what she needs.”

Pete narrowed his eyes and stuck his head out. “Is that code?” Three sets of eyes looked at him. “What? It feels like code.”

“I would like to congratulate you again,” Mrs. Frederic continued, ignoring Pete’s response. “You accomplished quite a feat with this mission.”

“Uh, thanks,” Pete said.

“And you, Ms. Wells,” Mrs. Frederic added. It sounded like a question, an inquiry.

“I haven’t been scared off if that is what you are getting at.”

“Good.”

“So Myka is okay, okay?” Pete butted in. “Like, no tattoos-“

“No tattoos, that was all reversed permanently.”

“Man, can you imagine Myka as like the Mrs. Dark of the carnival,” Claudia exclaimed. 

“Yeah,” Pete replied quickly. “Kind of hot.” 

“Agreed,” Helena replied equally as fast. 

He looked up in surprise, as did she. “Did I say that out loud? And did you just agree with me?” he asked.

“Yes, you both did. And I’m promptly ignoring it,” Claudia remarked with half an eye roll. “Keep it both in your pants. I’m sure Myka would hate to know you find her artifact induced identity crisis a turn on.”

“Claud!” Pete exclaimed. “It’s not that, it’s like the outfit, the charisma-“

“Just stop,” Claudia groaned.

“Yes, please do,” Helena added and narrowed her eyes at him.

“What? Relax, I can appreciate. And you just agreed with me!”

Claudia leaned over towards him. “She may have absently agreed but remember that whole thing were you and Myka were a couple once, so ixnay on hotay commentays.”

“Oh, right.”

Mrs. Frederic cleared her throat and the three of them focused back on her.

“I will be checking in again later but I shall leave this matter in your hands.”

“Okay, and thanks for the scones again, but do you think next time you could get all chocolate croissants?” Pete asked.

Mrs. Frederic ignored him as she turned towards Helena. She rested her hand lightly on her shoulder. “Patience, Agent Wells.”

“Pardon?”

Mrs. Frederic looked down at her with half a smile and then looked at Claudia and Pete once before looking back. “Zig-a-zig-ah.” And with that the Caretaker turned around and when Helena looked back she was gone.

“What-“

“Oh, my-“ Claudia began screeching.

“Did she just-“ Pete followed suit.

“She is totally just messing with us now,” Claudia finally got out.

Helena looked at them both in confusion. “What did she mean-“

“Man, it’s so weird,” Claudia continued.

“Yah, but fun weird.” Pete added. “I could get used to this.”

“For sure.” Claudia nodded. “I definitely prefer this to when she was being all weird and full face smiley and telling Myka she needed to have babies quickly.”

“To be fair, that was the artifact,” Pete added and then tried to snatch the rest of Claudia’s half eaten croissant off her plate. She slapped his hand away.

“Why,” Helena interrupted, her suddenly steely voice breaking through. “Is everyone so obsessed with Myka and having babies?”

“Uh-oh.” Pete reached over and started to pull Claudia closer to him. “She’s getting territorial again, cover your face, Claud!”

“Huh.” Claudia mumbled in surprised before Pete wrapped his arms around her head. “Get off me!” She pushed him back and tried to fix her messed up hair. She turned to face Helena as she took another bite from her breakfast. “Artifact business, H.G., don’t get your corset in a bunch.”

Helena reached for her scone. “Is Zig-a-zig-ah an artifact?”

Claudia started to choke on her croissant again. Pete leapt up and hit her on the back. “Easy.”

“Thanks,” Claudia wheezed, her eyes watery.

“Are you all right, dear?”

“Yes.” Claudia smiled at her. 

“Is it code then?” Helena questioned.

Pete laughed out loud. “Sort of, but I ain’t going to be the one to…decode it with you. I value my life.”

Claudia reached out and high fived him again. “Don’t worry about it, H.G.”

“I’m going to go see Myka,” she replied in a huff and started to get up.

“Nah, come on,” Claudia whined. “We’re just playing, you know what Mrs. Frederic said, she’s sleeping, so at least finish your breakfast before you go up. Sit with us.”

There was still the playful tone in the young woman’s voice but her eyes were silently imploring her to stay and Helena was struck by all the ways she still needed to make up her absence away.

“Of course, Claudia. I would be delighted.”

Claudia nodded at her and passed her another scone.

Helena accepted. Her eyes still passed up towards the ceiling and she still felt a tremor of panic, of anxiety curl in her stomach but she breathed out and she tried to focus on what Pete and Claudia were playfully bickering about. Now and then the anxiousness came but it would just run through her.

And sometimes in its wake all there was, was anticipation. Her eyes looked up at the ceiling again.

They were all under one roof again. And she couldn’t fathom how she’d ever wanted it any other way.


	17. Chapter 17

>   
>  “And I saw then and there you take a man half-bad and a woman half-bad and put their two good halves together and you got one human all good to share between.”  
> 

Myka opened her eyes and met the last disappearing rays of the sun through her window. She rolled over gently and noted the time of the evening. She had indeed slept most of the day.

The chair beside her bed was now empty. She vaguely recalled seeing Claudia sleeping in it once when she had groggily made her way to the bathroom earlier. Dr. Calder had assessed her at some point as well, but it was all a sort of blur. She’d had the soundest sleep she’d ever had in a long time.

There was a note on her bedside table. Limbs that fought against leaving the warm comfort of her bed tentatively began to shift and she sat up and reached for the note. The mere act caused her to wince at the stretch it caused in her shoulder. When she saw what was written on it she rolled her eyes. Dr. Calder’s handwriting looked back at her with clear instructions on taking it easy with her shoulder. Painkillers, a water bottle and a small jar waited on the table. With careful thought and attention she shifted closer and picked up the jar and opened it. The scent was surprisingly not overpowering and Myka rubbed the cream into the skin of her bruised shoulder. The skin started to tingle and she smiled to herself. 

The few minutes it took to follow at least half of Dr. Calder’s instructions gave her limbs enough time to coordinate themselves and she shifted out from under the sheets and planted her feet on the floor. She spotted a small pile of comic books by the empty chair and on the corner of her table there sat a half-drunk cup of what was now undoubtedly a cold drink. She sniffed it once. It was very strong tea. A book of hers, a collection of short stories sat beside the mug.

She sat and waited and listened but the B&B remained quiet around her, this did not bother her, in fact, it was an indulging comfort. She stood up and waited for the head rush but everything was slowly getting into working order and it was more of a lag effect in the way she began to move. The quiet was giving her time to assimilate. And what a strange thought to think she needed to adjust to being back in the B & B, she’d only been gone a few days. And yet, she walked across the plains of her floor, and a board creaked under her right foot and the sound played itself differently, she heard it, a new sort of song maybe, or a recollection of a tune lost and then her palm reached out and the pads of her fingers grazed across the leather of the book of short stories and its smoothness and warmth was sucked in by every inch of skin.

Next, she walked over towards her dresser and eyed her reflection in the small mirror above it. There was a hint of the dark bruise peeking through the opening in the neck of her shirt but there were no other marks from the carnival to be seen. Hands roved over her skin but there was no death cut marked across her. She leaned in and saw the redness of her lips and the clarity in her eyes and she swallowed the lump that had started to form in her throat and as she did she thought she tasted that trace, that small hint of black licorice on her tongue. She swallowed again and the spicy tartness hit the back of her throat and she watched her reflection, she stared and stared and saw the familiar green, the strong and sturdy green that sat in her eyes, with its flecks of gold, the unaffected green.

She blinked and no slashes of dark black cut through the iris, no swirling inky masses that wished to bleed out from the pupil. Eyelashes fluttered and the green grew bright and the gold shined stronger.

The sound of her stomach grumbling growled in the subdued quietness and her lips quirked up.

What was that that they said? Dying made one hungry. 

Or at least almost dying deserved a past dinner snack.

 

The journey from her room to the kitchen was uninterrupted. The kitchen was empty and quiet much like the rest of the place. She opened the fridge and was dismayed but not surprised by the lack of food selection, they really were going to have to start a system of taking turns buying the groceries. The cupboards were not that much better but she spotted a box of cereal on the top shelf and reached to grab it momentarily forgetting her healing shoulder and a hiss escaped her mouth as she pulled her arm back down and rubbed the sore joint. She tried with the other arm but the pain still pulled from the stretching across. She glared up at the top shelf.

“I can get that for you,” a soft quiet voice came from behind her.

Myka half turned around and saw Helena standing in the doorway, or more specifically huddling in the doorway, her shoulders were hunched down, her one foot was stepped back into the hallway and her hands fluttered in front of her before she wrung them together.

“You are awake,” Helena exhaled more than spoke.

“Looks that way, or I’ve suddenly developed a habit of sleepwalking.”

Helena smiled nervously at her. Myka found her eyebrows moving up, this H.G. Wells in front of her was extra skittish. Had she been sleepwalking earlier and done something stupid? Was it naive to think that’s what the behavior was about and not the one hundred other things that had remained unspoken between them?

“Yes, we just…” Helena paused. “We’d been taking turns waiting for you, Mrs. Frederic didn’t really say…Pete crashed about an hour ago and Claudia was called to the Warehouse to help assist Abigail with something…whatever it was, I had to help Claudia carry out some equipment to the car just now…otherwise…I would…”

Helena was looking down at her hands in an odd fashion and when she felt Myka following her gaze she jerked her head back up.

“Uh…here, let me get that down.” Helena finally stepped fully into the room and moved towards her.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

Myka stepped back and pulled a chair out to sit at the small table. Standing up right for so long and trying to comprehend the woman before her was already leading her to needing to sit down.

“Are you…are you sure this is what you want?”

Myka tilted her head around and glanced at the box of cereal, it was one of Pete’s sugary ones. She looked up at the shelf but didn’t see any other options.

“We, we weren’t sure when you were going to be up, we didn’t really have much of a dinner either, we…otherwise…there were some scones earlier… but Pete he…and we…”

Myka was entirely grateful she had made the decision to sit down. H.G. Wells was now indeed babbling in front of her. 

“I could cook you something…there’s eggs and…”

The frown on Myka’s face was an involuntary action. “No thanks…the cereal is fine.”

Helena nodded and proceeded to get a bowl, a spoon and some milk for her.

Despite her rest, Myka still felt a little lethargic and it caused her to be less concerned of the awkwardness that hung in the air and when Helena set the bowl of cereal and milk in front of her, Myka mumbled her thanks and started to eat with a certain single mindedness. Sugary loops crunched in her mouth and she found she did not mind the sugariness so much; it did its part in covering up that spicy tartness still at the back of her throat. She was halfway through her bowl when she realized Helena was now sitting across from her, quietly watching her.

And the awkwardness, it fluttered in the space between but Myka did not mind it so much. It was not a cruel indifference. It didn’t feel like the weird barrier before when they had last spoken outside of the motel room, but then Myka had felt the words but she had not felt much of anything else except for the sudden coming and going of building rage. Awkwardness was almost welcomed. 

Helena sat so small in her chair and Myka did not feel happy about this change in power, this shift from the time before in Boone. It was a curious thing to see.

For half of her had expected Helena would already be on her way back out into the world with a new Emily Lake persona in some place far away from the Warehouse. The carnival sure hadn’t been a walk in the park.

She wondered if the conversation they were about to have was the prelude to the upcoming exit. It would be the pattern to repeat itself. The nature of them.

And despite all the havoc and the wreckage the carnival had caused, the twisted feelings it had pulled to the surface inside of her, Myka did not wish to take any words back because the truth of it was, Myka was angry. Myka was so very angry with the woman before her. Before when they had left Boone she had felt disappointment, sadness and regret but when the time had grown, when life had begun to show her the ways in which she had even less control, that anger had come from that well deep inside of her she always liked to think of as dry. Anger could equally be a loss of control. She hadn’t wanted to give it power.

Helena shifted in her seat.

She hadn’t wanted to give the woman before her any more power over her.

Helena began to pick at the skin under her nails. It was a nervous tick Myka had never seen before. Myka swallowed harshly, bits of sugary loops not fully chewed pushing their way down and she swallowed some milk to follow as she watched the unusual habit in front of her. 

The pattern. The times where Myka could mark it off exactly where in her life she figured she couldn’t tell you a thing about H.G. Wells’ motives and thoughts, where the distrust and the unknown had railed right through and smashed her equilibrium and then the times she could tell you with her eyes closed exactly what the other woman in front of her was thinking, was wanting, was doing and how could the two things be so aligned, to be so common with them, to be so repeated.

Because it was that turn in the cycle now, that recurring point, the time where she didn’t know. She didn’t know the stranger across from her. It wasn’t entirely Emily Lake and it wasn’t the H.G. Wells she thought she’d known.

Emily Lake in Boone had done her job in setting that pattern, that cycle back on course.

What new things did Helena now know about this world? In all that time, how was she to know, to mark the changes. Was it incredibly selfish to wish to know?

It had been her job once, to help Helena, to explain, to answer any questions about this modern world. 

But Helena had gone out into it freely.

Without her.

She’d survived.

Without her.

Helena was picking at the skin until it was becoming raw.

“Are you all right?” Myka asked.

The nail picking stopped as Helena jerked in her seat and looked at her with wide eyes. “I’m I all right?” she repeated back. Helena looked around the room and then locked eyes with her and huffed a small snort of laughter. “I’m I all right?” she repeated again, although a bit more sarcastic than before. Myka thought she looked a little unhinged, the rings under her eyes more noticeable under the hanging light over the table.

“That is what I asked.”

“Of course you did,” Helena replied. “Of course you would,” she mumbled as she pulled her hands down from the table and into her lap.

Helena was not immediately forthcoming with any other words and yet she remained rooted in her seat. 

“Well…”Myka trailed off as she took another spoonful of cereal. Helena eyed her apprehensively. “You just seem a little….” Helena narrowed her eyes. “A little jittery.”

“Myka…” Helena breathed out, her chest expanding almost painfully. “Myka…you almost died and-“

“Which time?”

Helena’s open mouth closed abruptly and surprise flickered in her eyes before a look of indignant anger set her lips in a firm line.

Myka felt an easygoing smile twitch on her face.

“It isn’t funny,” Helena demanded.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“You look like you think it is.”

“Okay, maybe it is a little…I mean you do need to be specific in regards to that topic.” She started to spoon up the last few soggy loops in her bowl.

“You’re…you’re smiling,” Helena said.

Myka glanced at her. “And?”

“You haven’t…you haven’t really smiled like that, so freely…” Helena trailed off.

“It is a little bit funny, don’t you think,” Myka retorted. “It can’t all be so terribly insane, or I will go terribly insane.”

Helena blinked at her blankly and Myka put her spoon down.

“Uh, look, I’m sorry if I kind of freaked you out back at the carnival and the whole-“

“What! No!” Helena interrupted frantically. “Myka…it’s fine.”

Myka raised an eyebrow and Helena relaxed a little and rolled her eyes.

“Okay, it wasn’t fine fine. But you know, you didn’t, it wasn’t…it was all a bit of a shock, I will admit, but you are fine now too, right? You are okay?” 

“I am better,” Myka replied.

“Then I shall strive to be better as well.”

Myka nodded at her. “So…you feel okay then, after all the carnival did messing with us?”

“It was definitely an unexpected first retrieval to have getting back into the game but…I am glad to be…home.”

Myka narrowed her eyes as the other woman became invested in something in the corner of the room. Helena didn’t look back at her and so she began to move the pinkish left over milk around in her bowl with her spoon.

“You should have told me.” 

It was practically a whisper.

“What?” Myka asked.

Slowly, Helena turned and faced her again with a steadier gaze. “You should have told me when you were sick.”

The spoon in her hand stalled and Myka set it gently against the now almost empty bowl. The gaze she met across the table was not that of a simpering suburban mask, it wasn’t the jovial county worker; it wasn’t the cold mask of the deceiver, it was none of these things and very much the thing she remembered most, the gaze she could recall during late nights talking over books, during the first few conversations on missions when Myka liked to deflect and Helena would not have it one bit.

It was Helena Wells and Helena Wells did not like being lied too, she did not like having secrets withheld, it was an affront to her character, her ego, never mind the hypocrisy. 

And what of the things to say now, the things that had already been said a few nights ago, because the truth was, even without the carnival surging in her, the truth was, why would Emily Lake have wanted to know the news of her possible coming death.

Dying was messy.

It wasn’t going to be pretty.

It didn’t have the order of the trimmed front lawn and the perfectly lined white fence.

It didn’t have the appeal of life in a prospering city.

It was chaos and ruin.

It was the opposite of a new beginning. 

To the best of her knowledge it was these things and they did not align with Emily Lake’s view.

“Myka,” Helena continued. “I was still trying to talk you, you should have answered me and told-“

“What did I have in common with Emily Lake?” she blurted out and Myka wondered if that calliope was still beating in her, that the taste of syrupy black was still lingering for a reason in her mouth.

Helena flinched back a bit and Myka found it still did not bring her satisfaction, there was no delight in the other woman’s faults, no matter the anger and she felt relief even as her own indignation grew because facts were facts and she couldn’t help the way they made her feel. She couldn’t help now the way all the trapped words spilled out.

“I had nothing to discuss with Emily Lake,” she continued, her voice calm and neutral, because it was simply what it was.

She watched as Helena reached up and curled her shaking fingers around the chain of her necklace. Myka fought to get the words from tumbling out further, just for a moment longer, just for those few seconds she could wait, where she get her brain and her mouth both on the same schedule because there were so many things to point out, to say why she didn’t and too many could push away the other woman even further.

It was not good to say that Helena was kidding herself all along to think she could have her life in the outside normal world, to put up the fence, to tell Myka she was not a part of that order and then still demand some entrance into Myka’s life, the life that apparently caused Helena the most pain, the life that hadn’t made Helena feel like she belonged.

What indeed had there been to talk about? Just surface things. That mundane check in one did to give themselves a pat on the back. And honestly, maybe Helena hadn’t seen it, hadn’t recognized it, even before the diagnosis, even before Myka knew her own fate, had her own worry, she’d caught on to it, those phone calls really weren’t about anything. But maybe that wasn’t right, maybe there was a spark of hope that Helena was that desperate to still hear her, to still speak to her no matter the concept. But Myka, she had needed more and she’d known she wasn’t going to get it.

She wasn’t going to kid herself, not anymore.

It would be no good to speak of the worry, that small anxiety and concern that even if Helena had known about her cancer, had gotten the call, to think that the other woman would have fully replied, “How terribly sorry I am, but you’ll have to understand why I can’t come back. I made that point quite clear.” She hadn’t wanted to chance the possibility that Helena had gone full pod people as Claudia had said once.

But was that even fair to think, when even at the same time, when Myka had found out how far the cancer was, part of her thought ‘Helena can never know’ because a part of her still felt, still thought she knew on some level that for Helena to come back and for her to only die, it would be one of the most awful things she could do to Helena. 

And maybe, it would do no good to say that quite simply, the amount of time she would spend thinking about calling her and telling her exhausted her to no end and sometimes there had only been the thought of surviving, the idea of living each day and not the concepts that followed down the line.

It had been both easy and hard when she was lying on the cool tile of the bathroom floor after a previous round of chemo to wish for Helena to be close to her and to be as far away as possible.

“Was it to punish me then?” Helena whispered. There were unshed tears in her eyes and while her jaw was held high, her bottom lip trembled. “I know you were…are angry. I know you have a right to be.”

“What?” she replied in honest disbelief.

“Not telling me, was it punishment for what I did to you? What I was doing to you?”

“Punishment?”

“I know I hurt you again in staying away, and what I said in Boone. You had been right, Myka and I…pushed you the away the best I could because you were always so good at cutting through my lies. I was angry and…scared. I was mean to you.”

“And you think…you think I was trying to get back at you by not telling you? Punishing you?”

“As Pete has asked me several times over the last few days, what was the plan, Myka? You were dying, you refused to use most of the artifacts suggested-“

“The consequences were too high,” Myka rebuffed.

Helena smiled weakly. “Yes, I know, but you still took a chance with the one Pete found, I suppose it is easier to take that leap not knowing the side effects-“

“There was nothing easy about it,” Myka snapped.

Helena’s smile stretched even wider as she bowed her head slightly. “I can imagine. I didn’t mean to infer anything different, just…” She breathed out deeply. “You would have died and what then? I would have received a postcard from Pete or Claudia informing me of it.”

Myka looked past her watery expression, the mixture of sadness and anger and she focused on a tear in the wallpaper of the wall behind Helena. “You wouldn’t have gotten a postcard.”

“A phone call then,” Helena remarked as she threw her hand up in the air.

“You wouldn’t have gotten that either.”

Silence fell between and in that moment Myka noted a few more rips in the wallpaper.

“You had asked them not to tell me even then,” Helena spoke up in quiet shock, her voice more somber. “Why?”

“It wasn’t a form of punishment.”

“Why?” Helena repeated, her voice both desperate and demanding.

“It wasn’t,” she whispered back and her eyes fluttered up towards the ceiling.

She wasn’t that cruel she hoped. She wasn’t that selfish to use her own death as a ploy. No, she begged. She hadn’t been chosen to be the carnival’s new ringleader because there was any evil inside of her any greater than most. She wouldn’t let what had happened twist anything further.

But still…there were those tiny things that nagged at her. Those crazy, tiny things she would never ever say out loud. Because how was it, sometimes she felt the biggest betrayal Helena had ever committed against her was not the scheming lies, not the attempt to end the world, but the life freely chosen to live away from her, to have left without a word, without a reason. 

How was that the bitterest fruit?

Because Myka liked to think even after this latest mission, she wasn’t that fully lost, because there it was to be compared…

END OF THE WORLD.

…to…

Quite life in the burbs with no communication.

**END**

**OF**

**THE**

**WORLD.**

Maybe, she was that selfish to think of it in such a way.

But oh, how her mind liked to rationalize, how her mind liked to run, even when she wanted to shut it up, because it could be questioned Helena’s actions in wanting to destroy the world, she’d wanted Myka to find her, to stop her.

Quiet life in the burbs though, that was deliberate in other means, that was months of no need for Myka to find her and stop her. Helena had wanted free reign. That felt premeditate in ways that a hundred years in bronze game plan somehow didn’t.

Yes, she was most likely certifiable crazy.

The scale for crimes against humanity vs. crimes against Myka should not have been that hard to weigh.

Perhaps, she was merely human and no human was perfect. Her imperfections were not meant to be a punishment.

“Myka, why?” Helena’s voice cut through again.

Myka looked at her and noticed a few of the tears had fallen. 

“If…if I had died, they were only supposed to tell you if…if you planned on ever coming back to the Warehouse permanently again.”

“What?”

“There’d be no point-“

“What do you mean, there’d be no point?” Helena cut in, her voice rising. “Of course there would be a bloody point in knowing-“

“You had your separate life. The life you said you wanted. I thought…” her voice trembled and Myka looked back down at her bowl.

“You thought what?” Helena implored.

“That you were happy,” Myka whispered and looked up.

Strangely, Helena flinched again.

“That you could go on as long as you could with your life, and if you had that life, that life away, there was no point-“

“Stop bloody saying that!”

“But you were happy and-“

“No, I wasn’t!” Helena slapped her hand down on the table and Myka jumped in her seat. “My goodness, Myka, the amount of crimes I have committed in my life are large but for you think I wouldn’t have wanted to have known, for you truly to have thought that I was happy out there, away living those lies, I cannot-“ he voice croaked and a few more tears spilled.

“Don’t tell me you weren’t happy,” Myka began and she felt her spine go ridged and the sudden anger and disbelief was very much her own. “All that time, away then for nothing and-“

“I was a fool!” Helena yelled. “I am a bloody fool! And I don’t know why you still do not entirely see that.”

Myka sat back against her seat as she watched Helena’s continued outburst.

“You’re not a fool,” she added, trying to level out the resentment in her tone.

Helena laughed desperately. “But I am, because don’t you see, all that time away and it did neither of us any good.”

“You didn’t come back when you left Nate.” Myka found the words slipping out, the bitterness starting to escape little by little.

“And how does that not speak to you of how much of a fool I am. All I did was pretend, I pretended everything was better, I pretended all my problems in the world were the Warehouse. And…” she stumbled. “And for a while it worked…just barely, I almost called you several times even before the jaw bone incident but I didn’t know how to…it worked until it didn’t and even though things fell apart with Nate soon after you and Pete it was already happening, and I figured it was just Nate, I believed and told myself that I could start again. I could find another life with less fear.”

“The Warehouse-“

“It’s not just the Warehouse that scares me, Myka.”

And Myka saw it there written in her eyes. “Then why are you here?” she countered.

Helena laughed again, an aguish sound constricting inside her. “Because…because it occurred to me later than I would have liked, but thank goodness earlier all the same, it occurred to me that I had lived a rare life-“

Myka snorted.

Helena leveled her gaze at her. “I don’t mean necessarily literally with my experiences in time travel and the bronzing and the Warehouse, I mean…so rare does anyone find themselves getting so many chances in life. I very much wished for no life at all when Christina died and I could not bring her back but I was not one to…leave in such a way, there was still a part of me that had hope and I never really understood what it was, but something in me led to the bronzing, it was not just the guilt but I was not prepared for the side effects…” she paused as her breath caught. “It bothers me that I cannot adequately explain…but I made several mistakes in this new world and yet I was given chance after chance and I threw them away, I continued to hurt you, the one person in this new world that found that old hope inside of me. And, you see, I would very much like to no longer play the part of the fool and I would like to use the chances I have left to make the right choices.”

“Even if you are scared now?”

“If my chance at a life worthwhile must be contained with specks of fear, I would very much prefer that over a life of…of no wonder at all.”

Myka watched her and she felt the resentment start to slither away down the back of her spine.

“If Christina could have seen me…I know that I would not have made her proud all these years since…her passing…and I would like to very much start now making her so.”

For a moment the declaration kept Myka stuck to her seat and all she could do was nod at the suddenly earnest woman across from her.

“I wish you had told me, Myka. I understand why you didn’t, but I wish all the same.”

“Why?”

From the look Helena sent her, it was as though Myka had asked the most obtuse thing in the world, but she was purely earnest herself in asking.

“I would have been here.”

And she couldn’t help, those old habits were always still going to be there, she just needed to level them out but still the words lurched away. “Out of pity?”

Helena narrowed her eyes. “No.” There was so much emphasis in the one word and tone; Myka knew it was best not to argue.

“You didn’t need to see it. You didn’t need to see me during all of that. It was…not pretty. I was not…”

“I needed to be here,” Helena stated. “I should have been here.”

“But you weren’t.”

“And you didn’t call and yet…here we are. Both alive and sitting in the same room.”

“With chances,” Myka murmured absently.

Helena nodded at her and in the silence that followed Myka fiddled with the spoon in front of her.

“I would very much like to stop running,” Helena said breaking the tentative reprieve. “I would hope that perhaps, you would…too.”

The spoon fell from her fingers and her head snapped up. “I never ran away…” She recalled when she herself had left the Warehouse and she tried to recover. “I never ran away from you.” She winced slightly.

Helena smiled calmly at her. “We never…we never really got to explore this, this thing between us before for many reasons but even you have to admit…” she trailed off but didn’t look away. “Well, indeed a large part of it was my reasons but you were…hesitant…”

Myka didn’t think she’d been so hesitant those few times she had given in to Helena’s advances. She hadn’t been so hesitant making out up against that Warehouse shelf. She hadn’t been so hesitant up against the bookshelf. Or the door to her room. Or the door to Helena’s room. Quick chances of contact as far as they could go given everyone else around. Or that last desperate kiss Helena had given her in a tent in Egypt.

She had been a willing component but she had never gone further, they never had taken the full plunge and looking back knowing the betrayal that was going to happen she thought perhaps it was a good thing, even when she regretted her shortsightedness, because then she could just pretend it hadn’t been anything more.

But maybe even then, in those moments with Helena she had been uncertain, because Helena had been remarkably patient with her.

Myka had been caught off guard. The feelings, the sensations and need that Helena caused in her, it had seemed impossible, it had been too short of a time. She’d been with other people longer, people like Sam, that had been a relationship and yet nothing flared as bright or as strong as those few interactions with Helena.

It should have been impossible.

And indeed for a rational person like herself, Myka had been…uncertain to a degree.

Uncertainty had only grown after Egypt and just when she thought she had gotten some of that assurance back Helena had disappeared.

The pain in that absence should not have been as deep as it was.

It was not practical.

She glanced at the woman sitting across from her, the woman who was the very definition of not practical.

“Myka?”

“Yes.” Now it was Myka who had the urge to wring her hands together.

“I have been out in this new world, I have seen the possibilities, the good and the bad, the potential and none of it compares to what I see in you.”

Myka felt a desire to brush her off but she remained still and quiet.

“This world is filled with modern woman but none…none of them are you.”

Two tidal waves had grown inside of her, the forces fighting for dominance, crashing against each other right in her core and the cause, Helena’s words had the power to split her right down the middle and then she would see there was barely anything left to give, a drought after the flood.

What if the carnival itself had been so limited in the emotion it carved? She still wasn’t sure what was left in its wake, even as she tried to stamp out the doubt.

“I can’t be your salvation, Helena.”

In response, Helena surprisingly smiled. “I wouldn’t ask you to be.”

She tilted her head at her in surprise. 

Helena shrugged. “Abigail says its called…maturing.”

Myka couldn’t hide the smile that grew on her own face.

“I thought, maybe, we could mature together. At least give it a try, good or bad,” Helena continued.

“You’ve learned all of this knowledge in two weeks with Abigail?”

“Actually, I have been in contact with Abigail for longer.” Helena leant across the table. “Do not be mad. But Mrs. Frederic and I agreed it would be best to start sessions with Abigail first before I attempted to return. Test the waters so to speak.”

“I’m not mad,” Myka replied. “Not about that.” She picked up her spoon again and twirled it in the milk. “That…sounds like it was a smart move.”

“Yes.”

She tapped her spoon against the bottom of the bowl. “And what if…” she paused and matched Helena’s gaze. “What if I only wished us to go forward as just friends?”

There, that was practical.

Helena did not hide the crestfallen look on her face but she recovered well. “I would respect your wishes.” It was said hesitantly but said all the same. “It is truly your choice, Myka.”

“And what if I only wished us to be co-workers at best?”

Practicality-to-a-tee.

The other woman frowned. “Myka, I don’t understand.”

“What made you think the Warehouse and I were a package deal?”

Helena looked at her in confusion and then narrowed her eyes. “You are at the Warehouse, this is where you are.”

“So, did you come back for the Warehouse or for me?”

She was now half glaring at Myka. “Is this a test of some kind?”

Myka shrugged. “I just want to know is it like, sixty percent Warehouse and forty percent me, because then I would feel less bad about being just friends.”

“Myka, you do not need to feel bad,” Helena huffed.

Myka tried to hide the sly smile on her face just before she lifted her spoon up and flicked the flecks of milk across the table at a stunned Helena.

“Should I feel bad about that?” she asked innocently.

A still stunned Helena reached up slowly and wiped the milk off of her face.

“Is it like sixty percent me and then forty percent the Warehouse, because maybe that would make me more comfortable with being more perceptive to this idea of yours about maturing together. I just want to make sure it isn’t about convenience.”

“My, God, Myka,” Helena retorted. “What has ever been convenient about this?”

“Okay, it’s just,” she paused as she put the spoon back into the bowl to coat it in some more milk and Helena sat watching her the whole time and did not move when Myka repeated the exact same thing and flung some more milk across the table. “You know we don’t have any gazelles in the Warehouse, let alone ones Artie would let you fornicate with.”

Helena narrowed her eyes but her firm gaze was ineffective due to a spot of milk right on the tip of her nose. “How long has Claudia been making that joke?”

“Since day one,” Myka remarked

“I went on three dates and nothing happened, it was part of my whole inept foolhardy-“

“Helena.”

“I was pretending to be something-“

“Helena!”

Helena snapped her eyes to her in attention. “Yes?”

“You missed the part where I agreed to the whole trying out the maturing together concept, didn’t you?”

“Oh.”

“Oh, just ‘oh’, that’s what you are going with?”

“Perhaps, I am speechless.”

“I don’t think so, you are Helena Wells are you not?”

“The Helena Wells.” A well-missed and forgotten smirk danced across her face and Myka smirked in return.

“Of course,” Myka muttered as she playfully rolled her eyes and got up to put her bowl in the sink.

The air shifted by her and Helena was beside her side in an instant. “I can tell you that the percentage in comparison to the Warehouse is largely in your favor but I do not wish to let it be known lest I make the Warehouse jealous.”

Myka looked at her out the corner of her eye as she rinsed the bowl out. “I suppose that would be the smart move. Job security wise.”

“Indeed.”

Myka turned the tap off and found the topic focusing in her mind.

“What is it, Myka?”

“It’s just…I mean if you are only here for me…this job Helena, if you don’t want it, I mean-“

“Myka, I very much want the package deal as you say and if there comes a time where perhaps the least percentage wise part of the deal becomes an issue I will tell you but it occurred to me that while my sanity has been on the brink several times, only slightly crazy people do take this kind of job to begin with and I just wouldn’t be fit anywhere else.”

“Your comfort is that we’re all a little bit crazy?”

“Very much.”

“I am not crazy.”

Helena tilted her head back. “Of course, darling, not at all, not in the least, not even-“

Myka shut her up by flicking the water on her hands at her. 

“Would you stop that,” Helena remarked but she did not make an attempt to move back. “There are things I would much rather prefer to be doing.”

“Like what?”

And then without any set up, without that amped up charge, that vacuum of air, Helena leaned in and kissed her slowly on the mouth and the truth was she hadn’t needed an alert, she’d never heeded the warning that first encounter, it had been like a tremor that hummed between them, a fault line waiting to go and go and go, and how it had fissured in their past and now there was but the remains to pick up. Helena pulled back just an inch and Myka licked her lips and welcomed the aftermath.

“It might not be easy,” she found herself whispering between them.

Helena looked her warmly in the eye. “I expect not.” She reached up and caressed the skin of her cheek and Myka felt it like a scorching mark. “But I have found that easy is not the thing that I find worthy in this life anymore.”

“I have…I have issues too, you know,” Myka found herself fumbling.

“Darling, that is the fine print for both of us just under ‘Solving puzzles and saving the day’.” 

Myka laughed quietly. “Okay, I just didn’t know it was official-“ Her words were cut off as Helena leaned in to kiss her again and Myka marveled at the awkwardness that no longer hung in the air, she stood planted in awe as their lips met in a familiar longing fashion.

Helena pulled back again after a moment and rested her head against hers and said softly, “What sort of world it was now, there was no telling. He could feel them moving there, beyond the walls, almost, like-“

“-so many chess pieces blown in a dry wind, ”Myka finished and then exclaimed, “You read it.” She pulled back further as she noted the smile on Helena’s face.

“I did. I found a collection of Mr. Bradbury’s short stories in your room and I read his dinosaur time traveling adventure while you were asleep, among others.”

“And?”

“The man did undeniably have a gift for the written word and my, so many short stories left to go. You will have to forgive me though if I leave the supernatural carnival novel off of my to read list.”

Myka chuckled softly. “Understandable, I suppose. You’ll probably want to avoid the short story ‘The Illustrated Man’ as well.”

“The Illustrated Man, but I thought Mr. Dark-“

“It can be a little confusing, don’t worry about.”

“All right, well after we found out what the artifact was I did a little research into the man and he was quite the fan of my work, you were right…”

“I’m sensing a but.”

Helena rolled her eyes. “I just can’t believe he kept me in the same company as Jules Verne. I do not understand how both of our works, could together be seen in the same-“

This time it was Myka who cut off the words and leaned in with another kiss. As they settled into this pattern, this almost new pattern to note and log, Myka savored the moment, she savored the little pauses they took, the sort of effortless slow burning urgency and above all she savored the sweet long missed taste upon her lips, a sweetness that knocked anything else out of the park and got rid of any lingering aftertaste.

And she thought without a sense of remorse over the erudite nature of it, but she figured she’d never needed a tattoo of Helena upon her skin, for under her flesh there was an unseen tattoo already, spots of colorful ink with Helena’s name on it that could make her blood rush. A tattoo that beat inside a cage of bone, that was so many shades of blue and red, that pulsed faster and stronger as Helena pulled her closer.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end of the story, I would like to thank everyone who has been reading it, further thanks for the kudos and those of you who have left kind comments, it was very encouraging and nice to know the people who enjoyed the story.
> 
> Also I could never have imagined to see other people's art like manips and drawings on tumblr based on my story. I don't have a tumblr and I'm not sure if foxfire141 is still reading the story but I would just like to pass on it was incredibly cool and amazing to see their spectacular drawing based on chapter 8.

>   
>  “God, how we get our fingers in each other's clay. That's friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of each other.”  
> 

Pete started to count to a hundred, his head leaning back and bumping against the wall of the hallway with each number up. His eyes looking up at the ceiling, trying to find something of interest as he continued to wait and wait. He started to strum his fingers against the wall as he eyed the closed bathroom door beside him with mild annoyance.

He’d woken up earlier than normal, no doubt due to the fact he’d crashed in bed pretty early, he had wanted to stay up and wait for Myka but sleep had started to win and Helena had been pretty adamant that she was not tired. He had meant to wake in the night and check on her but turned out fate had decided to hand him a restful sleep since the first time getting back from the carnival.

Just across from him he watched Myka’s closed door, he’d opened it briefly and had seen a blanket covered form bundled up on her bed, the room covered in shadows from the drawn blinds as the early morning sun started to rise. He hadn’t wanted to bother her. Now he stood waiting impatiently, his eyes looking down the hall towards Helena’s open door.

With a sigh he turned around and quietly knocked on the bathroom door. “Come on, H.G., please hurry up, I told you this would happen if you kept drinking all that tea.”

Leaning forward he rested his forehead against the door. He had hoped he would have been back in bed by now but now he was starting to become fully awake.

“H.G, come on, please,” he whined quietly.

Any further whining broke off when the door swung open.

“Oh, hi, Mykes,” he said in surprise as Myka met him on the other side of the door.

“Pete,” she said as she raised an eyebrow at him.

He looked at her and then back to her bedroom’s door and then back to her and then back again.

“Everything okay?” she asked with a look of concern.

“Uh, yah…” he trailed off as he looked back at her bedroom door, he knew he’d seen someone in bed and yet, here Myka stood. Had he imagined… “Oh!” he yelped suddenly, as the reason occurred to him and then he turned to look at her with a small smile. “Everything is okay.”

Myka eyed him with a discerning look. “You sure?”

“Totally.”

She followed his excited gaze to her bedroom and then back to him and she frowned a little as he started to wiggle his eyebrows.

“We were just talking,” she remarked dryly and then rolled her eyes. “We fell asleep.”

“Not my fault you think my eyebrows mean anything different, honestly with you guys, the fact that you apparently even talked last night and are hanging out in the same room deserves eyebrow appreciation.” He started to wiggle his eyebrows at her again.

“You are going to hurt yourself,” she replied as he started to stick his head out towards her as he continued to make his eyebrows dance.

“I’m doing okay with it.”

She bit her bottom lip. “Okay, maybe I will hurt you then.”

He stopped as he noticed her trying not to smile. “Well, that sounds more like it.”

A brief pause settled between them and he noticed the bruise peeking through her shirt and her unruly mass of curls on her head but what struck him most was the open look on her face, the eyes that weren’t cloudy with an icy fog, the ever changing line of her lips as they strayed from the firm line he’d only seen recently.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

Myka reached up and rubbed her forehead. “Strange but…better. More…”

“More what?”

“More everything,” she added with a shrug. “It sounds corny but everything sort of feels more…balanced now.”

“Make sense. That carnival sure knew how to tip the scales in each of us to one extreme.”

Myka snorted. “Yes…but I mean, doesn’t it freak you out that, that all that stuff inside of us was there to begin with?”

He reached up and rubbed the back of his head. “No more than usual to be honest. I always…I already know my demons.”

Myka nodded as her eyes were drawn down towards the ground. “I thought I knew mine.”

“What’s got you more freaked out,” he began quietly. “The fact that you are capable of uncontrollable emotions like most people, the fact that you were chosen to be the new Dark or the fact that even after everything, even with that rational sense of yours, and a logical stacking of the facts you still…want to be with her?”

She looked up at him slowly and twitched her lips up. “All of the above.”

“Well, let Dr. Pete help you out,” he replied in an attempt at an Austrian accent.

Myka squinted at him. “Is that supposed to be Sigmund Freud?”

“What do you mean supposed to be?” he replied with mock offense. 

She rolled her eyes and sighed playfully. “This isn’t about phallic imagery.”

Pete snorted. “You’re telling me.” He started to chuckle as he wiggled his eyebrows back at her bedroom door. “Ow!” he yelled as Myka suddenly punched him in the shoulder. He grabbed his arm and rubbed it with a full-blown smile on his face.

“What are you smiling about?”

“Nothing, partner,” he replied as he turned to face her again.

“Better be nothing.”

Again a brief pause followed and Myka leant against the doorknob of the bathroom door and let her eyes wander around never settling.

“You know last night, I was going over my research on Erik the Red’s cup.”

Myka looked him in the eye.

“Mrs. Frederic suggested some things.” He shrugged. “It is quite possible the cup effected you, it sort of elaborated on things already there. I mean mentally, I totally get why you were the way you were after everything, like, hell, Mykes, what you went through it wasn’t easy, and all the stuff with H.G., I understand putting that wall back up.”

“I’m-“

He raised a hand up. “No, please let me finish.”

She nodded at him.

“But obviously there was something off before we even went to that carnival and I think…well I don’t know what to call or define the side-effect…” he trailed off.

“What?”

He half smiled at her. “The Frigid B Syndrome.”

Myka waited a beat and then laughed out loud.

“No, I’m serious, like those Vikings man, they were hardcore and Erik the Red, major hardcore and Greenland is seriously freezing, like f-to the-r-to the o-m-g my balls are a block of ice cubes.”

“Pete,” she warned but she was trying to stifle her laughter.

“I’ll come up with a better name, a more gender neutral name, I promise, but it’s very possible it heightened that disconnect, that…desolation you were already going through. Those Vikings, they had to not feel a whole lot to go and do what they did and survive. A cold ass armor of protection, you feel me.”

She tilted her head down and folded her arms. “I feel you,” she murmured.

“I know maybe, it seems like, we pushed it on you-“

“What?” She looked up sharply at him. “No, Pete, you didn’t…” 

“We didn’t know if it would even work,” he continued when she trailed off. “I mean you said it yourself, the cancer, who knew if it would recognize it as a poison so to speak-“

“Yes, but that’s why I continued treatment with Dr. Calder.”

He smiled at her. “Yah, but then that brain of yours was all like, it could recognize the chemo as a poison, I mean it was so many ifs and-“

“Pete,” she interrupted sternly. “You found the artifact and I chose to use it. Someone said…” she paused as her teeth worried at her bottom lip. “Honestly, it was best you did, it was best we didn’t know, because maybe I wouldn’t have taken that chance, maybe I would have over thought everything more and then never taken that chance…my very last chance.”

“But we still don’t know everything, you are right, how-“

“Pete.” She looked him dead in the eye. “I’m still here.”

His mouth suddenly felt dry and he matched her serious expression. “Yes, but you were right, the cancer it was too far, you knew-“

Myka shook her head back and forth. “I’m still here.” Her eyes began to look glossy as they watered. “Because of you.”

There was an annoying lump in his throat.

“If we had of listened to me, I wouldn’t have been here, you are right, I was very much too wrapped up inside myself and you saw that and you…you helped me, Pete and I am so thankful. And for once in my life, I am trying not to lock all the facts down, I don’t want to know why the cup worked, if maybe the cancer will come back, I don’t want to worry anymore. I’m exhausted.”

Pete swallowed. “Okay.”

“And if I start acting odd again, I give you permission to call me out on it.”

“It wasn’t odd. It was understandable just maybe enhanced with some artifact magic. We just…we wanted to give you some space since you’d had so much of your independence put through the ringer.”

“I know,” Myka smiled shyly at him. 

“And…with the carnival, well, maybe it did sense something different in you but it doesn’t mean you would have been pure evil.” He paused as he started to think back on the big confrontation a few days ago.

She tilted her head at him and narrowed her eyes. “You’re thinking about me as a Mrs. Dark aren’t you?”

“What? Why am I sensing tone?” he asked in surprise.

“You got this sort of funny look on your face,” she countered. “I know what that look means.”

“Hey, I am just trying to be positive here. You totally could have been a sensible ringleader of the carnival. Maybe it felt that.”

She squinted once more before she nodded. “Okay.”

“And maybe it would have been super hot,” he murmured quickly.

She punched him again in the shoulder. “I heard that.”

“Watch it, it’s not my fault you could have worked that hipster outfit better than Jim Williams.”

“You better keep that to yourself, Lattimer.”

He gave her a mock salute. “Listen, I’d take it as a compliment the carnival wanted you for that, I was supposed to be a drunken ass, can you imagine the outfit I would have been forced to wear.”

She chuckled lightly and it caused him to smile wider.

“I suppose all of this is one way to look at it,” she said. “I guess…Mrs. Frederic said that the carnival and the interaction of the two artifacts in me, that it’s actually sort of aligned things again.”

“I can see it. That carnival wanted to make you feel hardcore, crack right through that frost.”

Myka looked away. “Yes, but the anger, all that anger…it didn’t make that up. I’d buried it so deep and-“

“And it poured buckets and buckets of gasoline on it. We get it.”

She shifted nervously against the door. 

“It’s okay, you know, if you are still mad…at her. That’s not artifact magic, that’s…legitimate. ” 

She looked up at him with an anxious expression. “Sometimes…sometimes I hate that she even came into our lives…because…she makes me feel every time like a different person, a person who wants things I never would have before-“

“Right, like a lack of order and logical sense, like someone who deals with their problems with homicidal rage.”

“Previous misguided homicidal rage due in part to mental instability,” she corrected and then sighed, “But exactly. I’m crazy.”

“No…I think maybe you just have to create new standards for how potentially…” He winked at her door. “How this relationship may work.”

She nodded slowly. “But then sometimes, I think she makes me feel the most I’ve ever felt, that she sees me and…I missed her.”

“It’s mind blowing confusion and annoying.”

“Yes.”

“And you are scared?”

“Terrified of both her and myself.”

“So I guess the question is, do you want to give it one more try, is it worth it?”

“That is the question.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Is it weird though, if I don’t care anymore.”

His eyes widened and he felt a spasm of concern.

“I don’t mean like, literally unfeeling, I mean, so much has happened, we have other standards for our lives, I’ve already died almost twice recently, on top of all those other close calls and maybe, maybe I don’t care anymore if it doesn’t make sense to be with her, to…try one more time.”

“It’s not weird at all.”

“And it’s different this time, I hope, I have to hope. I still have my doubts but we talked a lot last night. She…she wants to try.”

“Oh, believe me I know,” he remarked.

Myka raised both her eyebrows at him. 

“We kind of bonded, she was so mopey about you. And I saw it too; she’s different, better different as well. She’s getting help.”

“Just think maybe this could have all been avoided if she’d gotten help right away.”

“I know, but it’s no good to think like that now.”

“No, I know,” she replied. “But I’m a little crazy aren’t I, she…she’s not who I imagined I’d…”

Pete snorted. “I don’t think you could ever have imagined that hey, one of your favorite authors from the nineteenth century would turn out to be a woman and was still somehow alive and you guys would totally connect while battling against her sanity and keeping the world in order. So maybe, I would think you were crazy if you had always imagined that was who’d you’d want to be with but not now that it’s happened.”

She smiled at him. “Well when you put it that way.” Her eyes drifted towards her bedroom door.

“Look, maybe the yelling and the fighting will come later, you’re both still healing, so most likely, yes to the yelling and the confrontations and who knows what is going to happen but go with what you want Myka. You deserve whatever you want. You don’t owe her; you don’t owe any of us. It’s your want. And I don’t think you should necessarily feel bad about the person you may or may not want to care about.”

She watched him with a scrutinizing squint of her eyes. “You know,” she drawled quietly. “You really are the best Pete around.”

He puffed his chest out. “Don’t I know it. Even if you couldn’t come up with a second thing.”

“A second thing? Hmm.” She tapped her chin in thought.

“Aww, come on, stop acting like it’s so hard to come up with-“

She pulled her hand down. “You’re my best friend Pete, the best kind of friend I’ve ever had,” she replied seriously.

“Yah?”

She nodded. “Yes. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be then here. I’m sorry I made you doubt that.”

“I’ll take it, the numero uno BFF of the world.” He raised his arms up in the air and started to fake cheer.

Myka shook her head as she watched him, a warm smirk sliding onto her face. “Thank you,” she said. “For being that friend.”

“Of course.”

“Not…not just to me,” she added as her eyes swept back over to her door. “I wasn’t exactly…”

“It wasn’t your responsibility. Artifacts aside, H.G. couldn’t expect you to be exactly welcoming. No one thinks you are wrong for all that. And hey, there’s enough of me to go around.”

Myka raised her chin up. “You helped her in there didn’t you? With the carnival?”

Pete shrugged. “It ain’t no thang.”

“Pete.” She nodded at him. “I’m serious.”

“I know. I know.”

“I’m going to hug you now,” she remarked as she stepped forward.

“Hug away,” he replied as he opened his arms wide.

She slipped into his grip easily as he pulled her tighter against him. It was less desperate and sharp angles like the one in the forest outside the carnival. It was a welcomed feeling and mindful of her injury he squeezed her lightly as it occurred to him how close it had been and he gave her one last squeeze when he thought of how thankful he was.

“If…if you ever need anything,” he began. “Let me know. Someone to complain to about her, I’m your man, someone to talk about that mess of human of emotions, I’m here, someone to rage to about your world and crap, that a be me.”

“Thank you,” she murmured against his shoulder.

“And also about how freaky deaky carnivals are now. I may need you for raging about that actually.”

She laughed and he felt her warm breath on his neck. “Not all carnivals, Pete.”

He pulled back slightly and looked at her in surprise. “Oh my god,” he started.

“What?” she replied in surprise.

“You are totally cool with carnivals still aren’t you?”

She shrugged. “I guess…I mean some good did come out of it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re still going to read that book aren’t you, Something Wicked?”

“Maybe one day again. It’s a good book. The good guys win. We won.”

He shook his head at her. “Nerd.” She opened her mouth to respond but he pulled her back in for a hug.

“I always got your back, Mykes.”

“Thanks.”

“And you know, you had ours in that carnival too, in the end, even with its power flowing through you and that’s what counts.”

“In the end,” she whispered against his shirt.

 

Myka’s bedroom door across from them squeaked open. “Am I interrupting?”

Myka moved to pull back but Pete held her closer as he turned them around to face a now awake Helena. She was raising one particularly perfectly arched eyebrow at them.

“Yes, actually,” he replied. “Myka and I have decided we are in love again. So be gone post haste lest we burn your eyes with our glory.”

Myka struggled again but he held on tight and he heard a muffled ‘Pete’ against his shirt.

The other perfectly arched eyebrow went up.

Myka was finally able to pull back an inch, her injured shoulder leaving her very much to Pete’s whims but he remembered to be gentle and would no doubt pay for it later.

“Pete,” she warned.

“Ah, ah, ah, if I keep you close the less likely you will be able to punch me.”

“I could always head butt you,” she replied.

“There is that.” He let her go and stepped back slightly and nodded at Helena. “Relax, H.G., we were just hugging it out BFF style.”

“I am aware,” Helena replied dryly.

For a moment neither of them spoke and then Myka leaned in and kissed him on his cheek and whispered, “I will get you back for that elaborate hug.”

He chuckled as she smiled at him and walked towards her door, she shared a knowing look with Helena before she slipped by her into her room with a passing affectionate squeeze to the other woman’s arm.

Helena watched her as she went before stepping out into the hallway and drawing the door almost closed. They stood in silence for a moment, as Helena made no further move forward. Her mouth opened and closed before it opened again.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he started when her mouth started to close again.

She looked at him in surprise. “And what is that?”

“You’re just as bummed out as me that we didn’t have to get everyone and sit in a circle and hold hands while we sang.”

She frowned at him. “That is not what I was going to say.”

“Okay, well maybe, I’m a little bummed out we didn’t have to.”

She gave him a curt little nod but remained standing silently, her limbs all tight against her as she looked at him.

“Whatever you do want to say then spit it out before you pop a vein.”

He at least took it as a good sign that she wasn’t wringing her hands together, even if she was acting a little odd as she remained quiet, the expression on her face a searching one.

“So you and Myka then,” he decided to start for her. “You’re determined to stay then.”

“Yes,” she replied a little less stiffly.

“All right.” He nodded back at her. “Just like to do a bit of the rundown.”

“The rundown?”

“The…rundown.” Narrowing his eyes, he squared his shoulders and continued. “Myka is still processing everything, so when you do have your first fight or she loses it on you in any way like when she recalls the stress of everything, which is possible, because again…processing.”

“I know what the word means,” she snipped back with an eye roll.

“Right, so when you guys do have your first fight, what do we not do?”

She started to tap her foot as she ran her hand through her hair with annoyed look.

“H.G,” he intoned. “What do we not do?”

“I do not run away, I do not run away and start living another life under a different persona, I do not look for large forks of mass destruction, I do not try and build another time machine to correct my mistakes.”

“Correct.” He clapped his hands together. “Now, if worst comes to worst, if Myka decides you and her aren’t it or she needs some time, what do we not do?”

“I do not run away, I do not run away and start living another life under a different persona, I do not look for large forks of mass destruction, I do not try and build another time machine to correct my mistakes.”

“I’m liking what I am hearing.” He opened his mouth to speak again but she interrupted him.

“I can pretty much gather that any further questions you are going to ask will most likely require the same answer.”

“You are probably right. But still the other part of the rundown is-“

“The part where you threaten me if I ever hurt Myka again, I imagine,” she threw in and for a flash he saw her cocky bravado as she half smirked at him. But then her flashing dark eyes tempered and a serious look spelled itself across her whole face. “Believe me, whatever punishment you have planned for such a thing, it would first have to compare to my own and you would have to get there before I did it myself.”

He raised his hands up between them. “Again, sort of liking what I’m hearing but did not mean to take us to such a dark place so soon.”

“It is true,” she stated, the seriousness not faltering on her face. “I have no desire for such a thing to ever happen again but if it did-“

“If it did, first you let Myka react to it and then not run away and-“

“Run away and start living another life under a different persona or-“

“Right, we got it. But let’s be serious, you’re going to make mistakes, she’s going to make mistakes, I’m talking about certain kind of hurt. The kind of hurt where you decide what’s best for her without even consulting her. The kind of hurt where you don’t tell her you need help.”

Her serious look turned thoughtful as she gave him a curt nod. “Your rundown has been noted and I will not forget.”

“Good, because we are standing on the precipice.”

“Very much so,” she replied.

Silence grew between them but neither felt the urge to move, he could tell she still wanted to say something, her hands fluttered in her hair again, the fingers only twitching slightly.

“Myka’s not the only one here to help you,” he found himself saying. She looked at him in slight surprise. “If you don’t always want to go on missions you know, we can cover you…” She was starting to look at him funny. “It’s just, there’s other options for working around here and if you ever feel you need a break…just say the word.”

“That…that is nice of you to offer.” Her voice trembled a little, with what he guessed was a sense of incredulity.

“Well it’s true, so don’t forget that either.”

She gave him half a smile before turning back towards Myka’s bedroom; she opened the door up a crack before looking back at him.

“Pete.”

“Yes,” he replied as he could tell she was finally about to get it out.

“Thank you,” she stated, and her voice neither sounded small or anxious, it was not mocking or hard, it was very much the tone of the woman he had gotten to know over the past few days in between all the life and death, the woman who very much wanted to be more, who wanted to strive forward. “For everything,” she added.

He smiled back at her easily. “You almost sprained yourself there a little, didn’t you?” he teased.

She smirked back at him. “Only a little, but I will survive.”

“You do that.”

She was about to slip back inside when he called out, “And hey, also per the rundown, no more punching or hitting me, that’s Myka’s thing.”

“I will mourn the loss, but understand.”

“And also, Aliens marathon this week, you and me, in the Pete Cave, don’t forget.”

“As long as you promise not to cry over the cat you know already survives.”

“You are asking a lot but I will try to keep it together.”

She nodded at him. “Then I will be there,” she replied before shutting the door closed behind her.

Pete stood still for a moment marveling at the two women who had just been before him and then he turned towards the bathroom. He shut the door behind him and caught the smile on his face in the mirror and although he still looked a little run down, he admired his reflection; he took in all the flaws, and was thankful that nothing shifted and changed before him. Instead he focused on the smile and the joy mirrored back in his eyes and for a second it wasn’t a good vibe that ran through him but just the trust that maybe, just maybe things were going to be okay.

“Hey!” Claudia’s voice suddenly came from the other side of the door along with a knock. “Hurry up in there!”

His smile grew and he figured he wasn’t a buffoon to hope that there had to be good along with the bad, if at least for a little while. And if maybe, it was a little delusional, that was a part of playing the clown he didn’t mind so much.

Not one bit.

Not at all.

Not even a little.


End file.
